So many reasons to give thanks to Intercap. Thank you Intercap for:
1. Filing a lawsuit against our town wasting time and taxpayer dollars.
2. Placing your profits over the well being of the community.
3. Raising our taxes and decreasing our home values.
4. Threatening the well being of our school system.
I won’t linger on the points that the Intercap Village mess would not have happened if the mayor had not started his transit village, nor that we could have had parking for residents a decade ago if parking had not been falsely bundled to the transit village, nor the question of why we want to be a mega-regional parking lot for commuters.
Nor the fundamental question of how Intercap Village benefits our current residents. Let’s just look at some history and one of the negative impacts to our town.
Hillier originally estimated that the transit village would generate $37 million in profits for the developers at the 1,000 condo level. What was never stated in the presentations is that the impact to tax payers for 1,000 high-rise condos was an estimated $3,000 to $5,000 per year increase in property taxes.
The township eventually agreed to 500 high-rise condos with the mayor’s promise that he would not allow any transit village construction that would increase property taxes. It will be interesting to see if that promise is kept.
Intercap was not happy with 500 high-rise condos and pushed for 1,500. Some think we should be grateful that they settled for 800 high-rise condos. I’d have been ecstatic if Intercap Village was like the pictures of Barcelona they showed us in the community presentations.
I’d have been grateful if they just built retail and restaurants. I’d have been happy with a mix of retail, restaurants and a sprinkling of town houses like Plainsboro. Instead we get the 800 high-rise condos of Intercap Village.
Several aspects of Intercap Village pose serious financial and community quality of life risks. I think they’d fill all the available space in the opinion section of the newspaper. Let me just focus on the school impact. Unfortunately, the cost of education in New Jersey is borne directly by property taxes in the associated school district area. That means that each new student increases the overall tax burden for the community.
As condos pay less property tax in general as compared to a house, the burden for the new students will fall on existing homeowners. Estimating the school tax contribution of $3,000/year from the Intercap Village condos — $2.4 million total. Now the estimates on number of incremental new students — conservative estimates are .3 new students/high-rise condo. Our township average is one student/household.
Our school district has a cost per student factor of $12,000 per year. That equates to Intercap Village yearly student costs of $3.6 million to 9.6 million — or a net deficit of $1.2 million to $7.2 million per year. What that means is that estimated education-only tax increase for each existing West Windsor household for Intercap Village are between $150 and $800/year.
Now add the cost of at least one new school — and there could easily be two new schools required when including other new construction and the high-end estimate of 800 new students from Intercap Village. We are looking at between $150 million and $200 million for new school construction and outfitting. At an estimated cost of $175 million, one new school would increase household tax burden by $1,000 per year.
So, our Intercap Village estimated increased tax burden for education alone is $1,500/year –– with substantial upside risk. And, let’s be honest, our tax burden already is ridiculous. Intercap Village will send it to a new level that I’m not sure there is an adequate word to describe.
What can our town government do? Unfortunately this is too big a mess to easily stop. But, they could do the following:
1. Ensure Intercap pays for all infrastructure changes required for Intercap Village.
2. Do not allow the wording change that increases the redevelopment plan’s maximum number of bedrooms from two to an average of two.
3. Do not sign a side agreement that states Intercap can build regardless of other court action. Intercap Village already has COAH challenges. This area could spin in to a huge mess.
I think doing anything less than the above would be misfeasance.
Mike Baxter
West Windsor
