Commercial Growth

 

Q: You say you want to encourage commercial growth by lowering the tax rate to attract more business. The Planning Board has no control over taxes, and the only way we can lower business taxes is to change the business tax shift which would increase residential taxes.

This is not necessarily true. My understanding is that the commercial tax rate is higher than the residential tax rate, and the PUD zoning laws will significantly reduce the commercial square footage for some of these properties. This effectively lowers taxes and increases profits for the commercial property owner, especially if the new use for that property is a high density apartment building. I believe the Billerica Mall project decreases the square footage of commercial space by almost 80,000 SF. More than likely the resulting decrease in tax revenue will fall back onto the home owners in the town, many of whom didn’t want this kind of development in the first place.

Yes, it is true that the Planning Board has no control over taxes, but Town Meeting does. As a Town Meeting member I will work to eliminate projects that increase taxes. I do want commercial development, but I don’t want development that unfairly shifts that tax burden from the commercial property owner to the homeowner. If we are going to do that, then let’s just agree at Town Meeting to lower the commercial tax rate, so as to attract more commercial business. This is what Bedford did to help attract businesses to some of their vacant commercial buildings.

The Committee to Elect John Meneghini
33 Timbercreek Rd, Billerica, MA 01821
https://planning-for-meneghini.blogspot.com/
Email: planning.for.meneghini@gmail.com
Phone: 978-435-4224

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