Growth can indeed help pay for itself it seems.
What we have learned in the almost three decades of fast population growth is that people and houses are a long-term payout.
The cost of providing schools and other critical services for newcomers will show up almost immediately. The payback on that cost is much slower to come, but can be seen every year now in higher property tax appraisals.
Until the past few years, what this community has lacked is retail development commensurate with its population growth and resulting costs.
In the past few years, though, that development has turned in our favor.
The retail payback is directly in play right now as Rutherford County enjoys a much more favorable sales tax revenue stream than the state or the nation, directly attributable to retail expansion in the past few years.
In fact, County Finance Director Lisa Nolen credits the immense retail development in Smyrna, which for years lagged even Murfreesboro’s slow growth, and in the past five years or so has simply exploded.
Sam Ridley Parkway, while not the only area of Smyrna retail expansion, has experienced nothing less than phenomenal development with stores large and small and numerous restaurants literally lining the roadway from Interstate 24 to the main Smyrna thoroughfare.
The result has been a tremendous quality of life improvement for the many people in the Smyrna area who have convenient shopping and dining options they have long sought.
And, for that city and the county overall the revenue stream from sales taxes has been a godsend in a slow economic time.
The 15 percent sales tax growth from Smyrna in 2007 helped the county keep a 12-cent property tax hike from being a 17-cent increase earlier this summer.
And, while Tennessee overall is seeing an actual decline in sales tax revenue, Rutherford County saw almost a 6 percent increase in August, well above the 2 percent growth that was budgeted.
Smyrna’s retail tax contribution coupled with increases in Murfreesboro from the opening of the Avenue, Stones River Mall expansion and other developments, are helping keep the county’s budget on track.
We absolutely need to continue to consider all aspects of growth, how to best manage it and direct it to the betterment of the entire community, but we also need to recognize it does indeed have its significant rewards.
Right now those rewards are coming at a most welcome time. |
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