The Cost of Zoning on the Average Citizen

Consider these excerpts from February 9th's Washington Examiner.

The cost of doing business with Fairfax County’s zoning regulators would skyrocket under a proposed fee increase to be considered by the Board of Supervisors.
The package of fees could hit homeowners and the ailing Virginia home-building industry alike, and follows measures proposed by Northern Virginia governments in similarly desperate financial straits.

Fairfax County faces a $648 million shortfall, and county staff wants to recoup $2 million by raising the cost of some permits, zoning appeals and other applications. The price of appealing a zoning administrator’s unfavorable decision, for example, would increase from $375 to a maximum of $2,455, according to documents provided by Fairfax County.

Michael Toalson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Virginia, called the proposal “government at its worst.” As builders endure rounds of layoffs from the shrinking volume of work amid the housing downturn, zoning staff should follow suit, he said.

Some in Mineral County look to Fairfax County, Virginia as a model and claim that Mineral County needs zoning. For some reason, the prospect of unchecked growth terrifies them (although many in Mineral County would love to see 10% of the growth these Northern Virginia counties have seen in the past decade.) Now the burden of maintaining a bureaucracy for the Planning and Zoning Board forces the government to raise zoning rates to maintain a bureaucracy that is currently restraining job growth in a tight market. God forbid they lay off their staff as many private businesses have. Instead they raise rates sky high and likely force the layoffs of more private sector workers.

Basically the people must pay more for an agency that restricts opportunities.

That is exactly what we DO NOT need in Mineral County. We need more jobs, not more rules.