Does growth pay for itself?

Does growth pay for itself?

No, it doesn’t sound nearly as fun as finding the answer to the cheeseburger question. But if you care about how much houses will cost in Douglas County in the future, or how high your tax bills will be years from now, it is a really important question.

City commissioners will start debating it at their meeting on Tuesday. Specifically, they will consider approving Plan 2040, which is a new comprehensive plan for the city and the county. Basically, it provides a set of rules for how growth ought to happen in the future. Among the new rules is that the city would seek to limit growth near the edge of the city and instead force as much growth as possible into older, existing parts of the city. A major reason behind this rule is because there are concerns about whether growth — especially housing growth — pays for itself. In other words, does the cost of providing government services to new residents total more than what they are paying in taxes and other government fees?

Read more: LJWorld.com.