Navarre Incorporated? (Destin: sales, city hall, mortgage)

sunrico90 · 03-12-2007, 05:21 PM

Some members of our town are moving forward with the idea of Incorporating the town and pushing to make it a city. Have any of you had any input in this type of action? I would like to get feedback positive or negative as I get educated on this subject.

blissblessed1 · 03-12-2007, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunrico90

Some members of our town are moving forward with the idea of Incorporating the town and pushing to make it a city. Have any of you had any input in this type of action? I would like to get feedback positive or negative as I get educated on this subject.

Yes. I live in Dade and our town became incorporated. Grandfather clauses get messed with alot. You pay village taxes AND County taxes. They put in sewers, and get rid of your perfectly working septic tank, and they charge you big bucks for that too. The services from the county are contracted out after incorporation, such as trash/bulk pickup,et. They start building weird things in the middle of the road, called rotundas. Talk about no one knowing what to do there! Oh and they plant annuals, remove them(kill them) and replant with more annuals as opposed to beautiful native flora and fauna that would not require watering, which you will pay for too. I can go on, should I?
Guess you can tell I am not a fan of incorporation: The town becomes their own mini me. But you seem extremely knowledgeable Sunrico, you will know after your research.

sunrico90 · 03-12-2007, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blissblessed1

Yes. I live in Dade and our town became incorporated. Grandfather clauses get messed with alot. You pay village taxes AND County taxes. They put in sewers, and get rid of your perfectly working septic tank, and they charge you big bucks for that too. The services from the county are contracted out after incorporation, such as trash/bulk pickup,et. They start building weird things in the middle of the road, called rotundas. Talk about no one knowing what to do there! Oh and they plant annuals, remove them(kill them) and replant with more annuals as opposed to beautiful native flora and fauna that would not require watering, which you will pay for too. I can go on, should I?
Guess you can tell I am not a fan of incorporation: The town becomes their own mini me. But you seem extremely knowledgeable Sunrico, you will know after your research.

Thank you for the info.... not everything is better by creating a city. Curious to know what happens if a person can't afford to paid the sewers charges? How pays?

blissblessed1 · 03-12-2007, 06:21 PM

They have to take out a loan or a mortgage I gyess. Because you pay it off on you yearly taxes. I think we will have to pay close to $6,000 when all is said and done.
I really think incorporation is for towns that have a population of people with high incomes. It does not appear to benefit the others. If it does it will only bewhen they are forced to sell because they can't keep up with all the new hikes. Community centers, emergency centers, etc!!! I guess it depends on how far away services are to the town as well. And how badly people feel they will need all that to make their community function better.

sunrico90 · 03-13-2007, 03:50 PM

Wow, does not make sense to jepardize the community. I believe they want to turn Navarre in another Destin. I don't think that we are ready for that type of change....

nagon mothership · 05-01-2007, 08:55 AM

I am out in California trying to find out about how to incorporate an "area." Our "area" sits right above a city that is growing out of it's britches, looking for prop and sales tax revenues, and turning a lusty eye on us. They already have our school in their school district, and as soon as they were short of funds, our school was the first on the chopping block. They have been steadily annexing new territory for a good five years now, aggressively. They got my last three houses and now I want to protect my new property.

When they annexed my other houses, btw, they were not able to force us on sewer unless our sewer fails, which won't happen in my lifetime cause I use soft soaps and I get it pumped every 4-5 years. We were hit with various city taxes, but nothing onerous. What stinks is, you're in the Redevelopment Agency, and your property taxes go to the city. Instead of fixing roads and schools, they revamp your downtown plaza and put crappy "artwork" all over the city center. What do you get in the outer lying areas? Nothing, you just pay. That's why "areas" in the city of Los Angeles Ca recently moved to incorporate themselves - they were sick of paying taxes that went to build fabulous buildings and fountains and plazas in Downtown, miles from their homes and schools. These "areas" were once little towns, but they weren't incorporated and as LA grew, they were annexed. Now they want out. I read about the beginnings of this movement about 5 years ago, now I can't find anything on it.

Next week we are having a community meeting with our county reps, discussing the new county general plan. I'm afraid they are just setting us up to be a bedroom community to the city below, and eventually annexed in. I want to be able to have an intelligent discussion about keeping our "area" out of the bigger city, and incorporation is the only answer I can find. Is there a website where I can find this stuff out?

First thing I will do is check back on the city you live in Sunrico, but if you have any information for me I would appreciate it.

cmsvmom · 05-01-2007, 02:09 PM

Oh no. One thing that attracted me to navarre was that it is unincorporated. I don't want to pay taxes to local government after living in NJ.

Your taxes will go way up to pay for the local administration of schools, cops, government. Then there will be the posturing by local people of influence. It will mean corruption. Lots of it. Even if the idea is "oh no, the county takes care of that" there will still have to be something to justify the existence and the expense of local government.

Damn. It reminded me of unincorporated south dade from years ago, and that is what attracted me to it. Now I have to keep looking, or I will move just to pay taxes to keep certain people and certain family members in power.

So what is unincorporated in northwest florida close to the beach where good houses are under $250,000?

The government is best that governs least. Why do they want to pile more layers on? Who is ready to line their pockets?

nagon mothership · 05-01-2007, 03:04 PM

well, does anybody have a good way to avoid being annexed (incorporated into another city) without incorporating your own city?

Like I said earlier, I've been annexed three times. As my family moved farther and farther from the city center, they just kept developing "leap-frog" around us, then annexing us in as "county pockets". Some developer would want city services, so he'd agree to annex his five acres just the other side of you. Then, there you'd be, in a "county pocket". Then the state of California allows the city to annex you - and unless you want to pay a lawyer hundreds of thousands, you don't have a thing to say about it. Then the county washes their hands of you - no more county sheriff, fire, or road work. But will the city provide those services? No, they expect you to form a "mello roos district," or some other form of assessing yourselves. That's in addition to the prop taxes you already pay.

You can run but you can't hide. Look at the city of Los Angeles, how spread out it is, and how far some of those communities are located from city hall. Those were all little towns at one time, but they didn't have any political savvy and they got swallowed up. They all pay, and the city of Los Angeles takes their property taxes and spends it on stuff like a new fountain for city hall, in downtown LA, which is up to 30 miles from some of these people's front doors.

We finally found a place 20 miles from town, and here they come. A city developer is buying up land all the way into the foothills, a guy who has already increased the size of that city by roughly a third, pushed it right into farmlands and foothill watershed areas. And now he's headed right up my road, bringing his new urban city nightmare right along with him. Incorporating my new "area" might be our only chance to keep the city out of our little mountain getaway.

I am looking for information on how to do that, but all I'm finding is how to incorporate your business. I'm just a housewife, I don't know about this stuff. I did find a bunch of folks who are seceding from the states of California and Oregon - the state of Jefferson, check it out online. It might sound silly but it's all about who controls your tax money.

MrTudo · 05-01-2007, 03:43 PM

I am against anything that increases the size of government in any way other than defence.

sunrico90 · 05-01-2007, 07:50 PM

The Incorporated term can be associated with HOA, many rules and limitation. This requires a lot of evaluation and community support.... I like the small town, let's keep it small and less rules....