Development won't balance out taxes

In a Jan. 6 article on development in Southeast, Larry Nadel, one of the developers of the Brewster Highlands shopping center, spoke of balancing tax revenues with quality-of-life issues. Unfortunately, that balance is an illusion.

Currently, Brewster Highlands pays $440,000 of the total Brewster school tax levy of $43 million or, put another way, the tuition for 38 students. Planned expansion (by, apparently, roughly 60 percent) of the development is hoped to generate an eventual total of $700,000 per year in school taxes. At that higher rate, it would take 61 of these fully developed shopping centers to pay the entire Brewster school tax levy. That's balance?

Of course, the continued growth of the region means school budget increases. A 5 percent per year increase would require the construction of three new, fully developed Brewster Highlands plazas per year to keep pace. A more likely 1O percent increase would require the construction of six new plazas, with their completely unbalanced impacts to traffic, water supply and general quality-of-life.

Currently, Brewster Highlands generates somewhere between $5 million and $7 million of sales tax toward Putnam County's $105 million budget. That saves the average homeowner between $28 and $39 per year in county property tax, or between 8 and 11 cents per day, small counterbalance indeed for all the fuel and time wasted in Highlands traffic.

True balance requires exchanging value for value. That's not going to happen until we stop pretending that retail development can pay our bills. It can't.

MATTHEW J. BENNETT
Mahopac