Is it time to prepare for Renewable Energy Sources?

During our last Presidential election (and likely to be a topic in every election into the future), one vision for the future of the US electric consumption placed a strong emphasis on renewable sources of energy. And why not – after all, they provide a non-polluting, automatically renewing, low-impact source of electricity. Even in the early days of Elizabethton our first sources of electricity came from a renewable source – hydroelectricity from Wilbur and Watauga Dams.

While large-scale renewable source of electricity is much more efficient, we are starting to see more and more small-scale renewable sources appear in our community. We have a bank and veterinarian who have solar panels on their roofs and a residence that has placed solar panels in the back yard. Coming on the US market are Tesla’s new solar shingles, a stand-alone solar panel unit called SmartFlower, and varies wind turbines which can work in high and low wind environments. As these technologies become more popular and the prices become cheaper, we will likely see an increase in local usage.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, small-scale solar (think residential or small business solar units) is expected to increase by 23 percent nationally during 2018 and it makes good sense! Adding a solar unit lowers or possibly eliminates your electric bill depending on your electric usage and how efficient your house is. Additionally, in natural disasters like we saw in Puerto Rico recently, buildings and homes that had solar and wind capabilities were back up and running in a day or two compared with others connected to the grid who still may not have power weeks after the disaster.

A concern the community may have as these small-scale energy sources grow is the location and appearance of these sources. Solar panels may not look bad on the top of a building, but what about in your neighbor’s back yard, or what about a 30-foot pole with a turbine on top in your neighbor’s back yard? Aesthetics and appearance of these renewable sources can have a negative impact on home values and even the community as a whole.

What are your thoughts? Is it time for us to start considering aesthetic and location requirements for small-scale renewable energy sources? Tell us what you think we should require. Let’s talk about it!

Public Art Makes the Community

The discussion of public art has been somewhat of a hot topic this past year, especially with the formation and activity of the new Elizabethton Arts and Cultural Alliance. In many cities throughout North America, public art has started to become a recognized necessity. Public art was an identity for many ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and Persians and old cities such as Rome, Athens, Florence, Vienna, and even (to a certain extent) New York.

One reason it was and is becoming popular again is because it was something one-of-a-kind. It was a public icon that was specifically tied to a particular community or city and, therefore, helped you easily identify where you were before there were town signs or water towers with community names on them. In a time before every street had a name, you could easily navigate a city based on building landmarks (such as church bell towers), a city’s public squares, and the city’s public art. During the middle of the Renaissance, public art began to even become a competition among cities – who could have the most public art and who could have the best public art.

As I eluded to earlier, many great places and many successful cities have public art. Rome and Florence and two cities well known for their public art, but cities like New York, Vienna, Paris, Seattle, Rio de Janeiro, and Chicago also have a lot of public art. These are fun cities to be in and their public art creates a little excitement every time to visit a park or turn a corner to see a unique piece. Even smaller cities like Chattanooga, Asheville, Huntsville, and Johnson City and Kingsport have great public art or have started programs to promote public art. Public art can inspire future artists, provide a sense of beauty, and give an identity to these cities.

Lastly, public art provides something for our local citizens to enjoy and something memorable for our visitors. As we work to increase tourism in Elizabethton, we want to create memorable icons and things for visitors to take pictures of and with. Public art should be something that reflects our local culture and community. Think of a time when you visited a new place and years later, as you recall the story or look through a photo album, you say, “Remember when saw that ______ in ______?” When you visit Chicago, you might think of the Cloud Gate; when you visit Wall Street in New York, you think of the Charging Bull sculpture; or when you visit Paris, you think of the Arc de Triumph or maybe the Eiffel Tower. These are all icon that help identify the city.

Just as you hang pictures or other forms of art on your walls at home, so must our community “decorate” to become a more attractive and unique place. What role do you think public art should play in our community? Let’s talk about it!

Downtown Development Pattern Produces Best ROI for Taxes - Part 2

Last week we talked about the return on investment cities see from downtown style development patterns verses modern development patterns. This week, I want to look at why this is the case and what are the implications of changing our regulations to encourage this development pattern.

So why is it that a downtown development style has a higher tax assessment per acre value that other commercial developments. One big issue is parking. Downtown style development has shared parking areas either on-street or in public owned off-street lots. By itself, the Walmart building may have a somewhat comparable assessment value to a single-story building in downtown, but when we spread that value out over its entire parking lot (which adds little or no value to the property) it substantially decreases Walmart’s per acre assessment value.

Another reason is density. If we split each of Walmart’s departments up into a store in downtown, combined, all the stores would not equal the same acreage that Walmart currently occupies. That’s because some may utilize a second floor for shopping, storage, or offices and there would not be as much space made available for large areas of displays (think of the bakery section at Walmart and how much space it takes up verses a downtown bakery you’ve been in before). This allows more stores and shops to locate in an acre of downtown style development than that of our modern style of development.

One last reason is mixed land uses. In most North American cities and towns, we separate the land uses – residential over here, shopping over there, and offices somewhere in between. But in downtown style developments we take advantage of the height to put multiple uses in one building, such as a store on the first floor, a law office on the second floor, and condos or apartments on the third and fourth floor make the land the building sits on worth more and therefore more money for the building owner and a higher tax assessment for the city.

So what benefits could our community see if we focused more on this older style of development. First would be lower taxes. If we can increase the tax assessment on a piece of property already in the city limits without having to expand the police or fire service, build new roads, add a new garbage route, etc, then that means the expenses are split more ways meaning no tax increases or even lower taxes.

Another is more jobs. We all know that small businesses are collectively the largest employer in the nation and in almost any local economy. More mixed-use, downtown style development would provide the opportunity for new innovative businesses to start and be successful. It could also mean newer small businesses that might locate in the first floor of buildings which will result in more jobs being created. This is a process that won’t happen over night, but over a 10 or 20-year period we will see more small businesses and jobs being created. The best part is we can look to communities who have implemented these types of development policies to see the benefits.

Traditional, downtown pattern of development is a more sustainable type of development that can help put Elizabethton on a path to fiscal success. Now, no-one is suggesting that everyone live downtown on the third floor, but there are people interested in this type of living and from study after study, case after case, we only have benefits to reap. Is it time for us to reevaluate and alter our regulations? Let’s talk about it!

Downtown Development Pattern Produces Best ROI for Taxes - Part 1

I don’t know about you, but I love exploring downtowns in a community. It seems like every time we’re traveling, I want to take the “long way” and pass through the downtown. Downtowns are the heart of a community and can tell someone a lot about what is important to the community and how alive the community is. But downtowns (and especially vibrant downtowns) also play another role in a city – tax revenue. You heard me right, tax revenue.

A recent exploration of the impact that downtowns have on tax revenue in many communities, both large and small, found that downtowns and downtown type development patterns generate the most amount of property tax per acre when compared to the rest of the city.

This got me thinking about similar implications that our downtown has on our city’s property taxes, so I ran an analysis to see. It turned out the same was true for Elizabethton. It wasn’t a surprise that downtown has higher tax assessments per acre that did other areas of the city, the surprise was how much of an increase there was! The median tax assessment per acre in downtown was approximately $383,000 while the median tax assessment per acre along the West Elk commercial corridor was only $197,000 – a difference of $186,000 in assessment or what would translate into approximately $3,300 per acre in city property taxes. It’s also important to note that this downtown median tax assessment value is the way our downtown is now, not if every building has a store or restaurant and the second and third floors were fixed-up.

Some of you may be saying, “This may be true, but the sales tax Walmart, Ingles, and Lowe's generates are more than enough to make up this difference.” This is a true statement, but as we saw in the years following the 2008 collapse of the stock market, sales taxes can fluctuate. If the local economy is doing well, unemployment is low, and consumer confidence is high, sales tax collections can make up this difference with no problems. If, however, the local economy is performing poorly, unemployment is high and consumer confidence is low people will only purchase what they absolutely need and limit their travel because driving your car out of the way to shop costs money causing sales taxes to plummet. Even with less revenue the city must still provide water service, police and fire protection, pave roads, etc. Sales taxes are not a reliable source of revenue.

Next week I want to take this a step further and talk about why this reality is the way it is and what the implications are if we changed our development policies towards more downtown style development. Until then, let’s talk about it!