Comment by shuckles
2 years ago
Utilities are paid for by use, so that's not really relevant to municipal finances. Even still, the power and water use of an unoccupied residence is obviously much lower than an occupied one.
Property taxes pay for municipal services like parks, schools, and police. The rest of the town's residents get better versions of those than they could afford otherwise. This isn't a very complex idea, regardless of whether you think the town would be better off with more people living within it full-time.
Yes but my point is that for an equally valuable house the property tax contributes equally to those resources whether they live there or not, but I can’t imagine the burden of someone living full time in a house of that value is very high on such resources. I understand what you are suggesting conceptually, but I disagree on the impact. If there are any numbers on such a resource burden maybe I’ll change my mind! I’m not sure if there is data out there for this kind of thing.
Unless you are suggesting replacing such a home with higher numbers of lower value homes. Obviously that would be a different story.
In my town schools are about 60-70% of property taxes and, with a new regional high school being built, that number will probably go up. That's pretty typical situation in Massachusetts towns around where I live.
We're certainly a year-round town. But it's a reality of a lot of coastal communities as you get up the coast further that, if they're not commercial fishing ports, they do largely close down in the winter. If there weren't summer homes and a tourist industry, not many people would live there.