I stole the following from today's News & Record for fear they might "lose" their archives a 3rd time.
"By Alan E. Ferguson
Stories about the assembly of local property into an industrial megasite of from 1,000 to 2,000 acres have appeared recently in this and other local newspapers. We have learned that the N.C. Department of Commerce and Randolph County, in an effort led by the Piedmont Triad Partnership, hope to attract a major industry such as an automobile assembly plant to the site.
I live on a parcel of property adjacent to one of these targeted areas, just northwest of Liberty in Randolph County.
Who opposes attracting a big, high-paying employer to the Piedmont? Well, no one, really. But all of us should be concerned as to where that employer is located and who pays for bringing one here. At present, those behind the assembly of a Liberty site have a big problem:
They don’t own the property. The site consists of 70-plus Randolph County tax parcels, many of which are occupied by owner residents who are unhappy that their rural acreages have been targeted for our area’s next great industrial zone.
This means someone yet has to pay for the property. After some digging by a group of us who have incorporated as the Northeast Randolph Property Owners, LLC, we know that those payers will be the taxpayers of North Carolina, Randolph County and to some extent Guilford County.
Randolph County was recently given $1.67 million by state government to begin acquiring property for the megasite.
Anyone can do the math on such a large acreage and see that even at bargain basement prices, many millions of tax dollars will be spent before this site is titled to a single owner. (And they cannot get the property by eminent domain, as our law does not allow forced acquisitions for economic development purposes.) Each contract for purchase will have to be negotiated with each property owner.
There are no business suitors for this property. If private parties were doing what the state and county are doing, their activities would be defined as land speculation. After acquisition, of course, the government will shop the parcel to a large company and likely give away the taxpayers’ new tract as an incentive to build a factory here.
This process is particularly interesting considering that our government is now run by a party whose 2012 platform contained the following:
“We oppose bailouts and corporate welfare. It is contrary to the free enterprise system to recruit or retain businesses with targeted tax incentives when other businesses bear the full burden of taxation. Higher tax rates on the many to provide preferential treatment for the few is unfair.”
As I recall, the Democratic candidate for governor was beaten up on this issue during at least one of the debates during the 2012 campaign.
Buying the land won’t be the end of the cost. This parcel is 16 straight-line miles from the center of Greensboro. The Rockingham County line, the Alamance County line and the center of High Point are closer. The site has no water line, no sewer line, no natural gas and no nearby big electrical substation. It is agricultural land. We have asked about the water and sewer and were told that Greensboro would provide both. We wonder if the taxpayers in Greensboro know they could soon be asked to extend water and sewer services another eight miles beyond Forest Oaks down to Randolph County?
All of this means that easements and rights-of-way would have to be purchased, some likely only through the exercise of eminent domain (and the attendant expense), across properties between the current terminal points of these utilities and Liberty.
Much has also been made of the fact that this site is adjacent to a major rail line and four-lane U.S. 421. If the railroad track is to carry substantial additional traffic, will it soon become a double track? How long would it be before increased truck traffic required that nearby N.C. 62 and Old U.S. 421 be four-laned? How would the hundreds of Guilford and Randolph residents feel about these improvements across their front yards?
The shame of all of this is that many, many acres of vacant industrial land already exist in Guilford, Alamance, Forsyth, Davidson and Randolph counties. These acres are already served by all of the utilities I have named and are closer to the pool of available workers to man the jobs at the plants to be built.
I know, I know: The fashion now in industrial recruiting offices is to assemble a large tract of virgin farmland for development and then offer it to industry, but that is fashion and not necessity. And fashion should never dictate that fields and woodlands be forever destroyed for lack of better imagination.
This megasite business is a transformative economic and social project. If it comes, it will forever change the lifestyles of thousands of residents of Randolph, Alamance and southern Guilford counties. It’s all being done on those taxpayers’ dime, with no discussion and nearly completely under public radar. And now a political party that has long claimed to oppose just such public expenditures and campaigned against them is running the show. Pity, all that.
Alan E. Ferguson practices law in Greensboro and lives in Liberty."
Like I've been saying for years, put the jobs where the people live and stop subsidizing local developers with municipal tax dollars. You see, that's what these mega sites are really all about.
"By Alan E. Ferguson
Stories about the assembly of local property into an industrial megasite of from 1,000 to 2,000 acres have appeared recently in this and other local newspapers. We have learned that the N.C. Department of Commerce and Randolph County, in an effort led by the Piedmont Triad Partnership, hope to attract a major industry such as an automobile assembly plant to the site.
I live on a parcel of property adjacent to one of these targeted areas, just northwest of Liberty in Randolph County.
Who opposes attracting a big, high-paying employer to the Piedmont? Well, no one, really. But all of us should be concerned as to where that employer is located and who pays for bringing one here. At present, those behind the assembly of a Liberty site have a big problem:
They don’t own the property. The site consists of 70-plus Randolph County tax parcels, many of which are occupied by owner residents who are unhappy that their rural acreages have been targeted for our area’s next great industrial zone.
This means someone yet has to pay for the property. After some digging by a group of us who have incorporated as the Northeast Randolph Property Owners, LLC, we know that those payers will be the taxpayers of North Carolina, Randolph County and to some extent Guilford County.
Randolph County was recently given $1.67 million by state government to begin acquiring property for the megasite.
Anyone can do the math on such a large acreage and see that even at bargain basement prices, many millions of tax dollars will be spent before this site is titled to a single owner. (And they cannot get the property by eminent domain, as our law does not allow forced acquisitions for economic development purposes.) Each contract for purchase will have to be negotiated with each property owner.
There are no business suitors for this property. If private parties were doing what the state and county are doing, their activities would be defined as land speculation. After acquisition, of course, the government will shop the parcel to a large company and likely give away the taxpayers’ new tract as an incentive to build a factory here.
This process is particularly interesting considering that our government is now run by a party whose 2012 platform contained the following:
“We oppose bailouts and corporate welfare. It is contrary to the free enterprise system to recruit or retain businesses with targeted tax incentives when other businesses bear the full burden of taxation. Higher tax rates on the many to provide preferential treatment for the few is unfair.”
As I recall, the Democratic candidate for governor was beaten up on this issue during at least one of the debates during the 2012 campaign.
Buying the land won’t be the end of the cost. This parcel is 16 straight-line miles from the center of Greensboro. The Rockingham County line, the Alamance County line and the center of High Point are closer. The site has no water line, no sewer line, no natural gas and no nearby big electrical substation. It is agricultural land. We have asked about the water and sewer and were told that Greensboro would provide both. We wonder if the taxpayers in Greensboro know they could soon be asked to extend water and sewer services another eight miles beyond Forest Oaks down to Randolph County?
All of this means that easements and rights-of-way would have to be purchased, some likely only through the exercise of eminent domain (and the attendant expense), across properties between the current terminal points of these utilities and Liberty.
Much has also been made of the fact that this site is adjacent to a major rail line and four-lane U.S. 421. If the railroad track is to carry substantial additional traffic, will it soon become a double track? How long would it be before increased truck traffic required that nearby N.C. 62 and Old U.S. 421 be four-laned? How would the hundreds of Guilford and Randolph residents feel about these improvements across their front yards?
The shame of all of this is that many, many acres of vacant industrial land already exist in Guilford, Alamance, Forsyth, Davidson and Randolph counties. These acres are already served by all of the utilities I have named and are closer to the pool of available workers to man the jobs at the plants to be built.
I know, I know: The fashion now in industrial recruiting offices is to assemble a large tract of virgin farmland for development and then offer it to industry, but that is fashion and not necessity. And fashion should never dictate that fields and woodlands be forever destroyed for lack of better imagination.
This megasite business is a transformative economic and social project. If it comes, it will forever change the lifestyles of thousands of residents of Randolph, Alamance and southern Guilford counties. It’s all being done on those taxpayers’ dime, with no discussion and nearly completely under public radar. And now a political party that has long claimed to oppose just such public expenditures and campaigned against them is running the show. Pity, all that.
Alan E. Ferguson practices law in Greensboro and lives in Liberty."
Like I've been saying for years, put the jobs where the people live and stop subsidizing local developers with municipal tax dollars. You see, that's what these mega sites are really all about.
