Cocoposts

Mining in Town

From the Santa Fe New Mexican and AP is news of Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearings about 1872 Mining Law changes and a new report by the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining.   

... The Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining and the Environmental Working Group said in a report released Tuesday that active mining claims on federal land near Western cities and towns increased almost 50 percent since 2003, to more than 50,000 claims....

The National Mining Association says the increase in claims is driven by a surging worldwide demand for raw materials. The association's Luke Popovich said 5 percent or less of claims are actually mined and added the industry is working to lessen the amount of pollution it creates.

Tuesday's report, Popovich said, shows environmentalists are "against those communities that depend on mines for their livelihood."

The federal government reported last month that the metal mining industry disposed of or released 1.2 billion tons of toxic chemicals in 2006 — more than any other industry.

There is little difference, in practice, between community livelihood and community environmental health.  The National Mining Association and others benefit from weak public memory in obscuring this truth.

It is an uranium "renaissance" because we've forgotten what a bad idea it was. 

 

No More Dog Beach

From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune comes a tale of "private property rights" to spoon feed passionate defenders what they want to hear.  Only this self-made hero in the struggle against government in Florida is a little off-message.

During his 34 years practicing eminent domain, (Bill) Moore has been involved in most of the highest profile eminent domain cases in Southwest Florida.  He defended property owners against Charlotte County's efforts to seize land as part of its Murdock Village project. He battled Sarasota County's efforts to remove a developer's rights to build condominiums in the Myakka River Protection Zone and helped farmers get adequate reimbursement for land taken under the federal government's Kissimmee River Restoration Project.

After recounting a case in which he successfully closed a beach at Siesta Key - known as Dog Beach - to dog walkers, he boasts:

The moral of the story is that the government cannot take private property and turn it into a public park for dogs without compensating owners, Moore said.  His victory may not have pleased the average dog walker, but for Moore, it was a no-brainer. Private property rights are fundamental, and private citizens need to be protected against the almost overwhelming power of government, he says. David vs. Goliath -- always.

Now, which one had the dog - David or Goliath?

This fantasy is supposed to be about sticking up for the little guy against big bad government.  It is never about corporate power on the other side - like where land use regulations protect a neighborhood from industry or a big box.  Or where zoning restricts those towering beach condominiums.  No, in this fantasy it is the evil government - and dog walkers - we must be protected from. 

 

The Authority's Authority

The development community's objection to Albuquerque -Bernalillo County Water Authority's conservation measures goes deeper.  It is indicative of why the Authority was created under direction and support of the developer lobby in the first place.  Not about the cost of rain gutters.  Ya think?

 From the Albuquerque Journal:

"We feel the water authority has overstepped its authority," said Katherine Martinez, Home Builders Association governmental affairs director.  Martinez said her group does not believe the utility had authority to pass the legislation, which places requirements on the construction of all new buildings within the authority's service area.     She said those requirements can be imposed only by cities and, to a lesser extent, counties.  "Nowhere in state law does any other entity have the power to change building codes," Martinez said.

The state's largest water  utility is now an entity without any regulatory power - outside the control of representative city and county government and disconnected from the normal planning tools of building, zoning and subdivision codes.   

As a practical matter, how do you implement water planning without those tools?  The water system is semi-privatized and it is increasingly difficult for the public to exert any control over management of the resource.    

I may actually agree with Katherine.  The Authority has no authority.  By design.

Race to the Edge

A new "master planned community",  proposed on traded Arizona trust land is interesting in light of the housing market slow-down. 

Housing Doom blog notes the story from the Arizona Republic about 12,000 acres southeast of Tucson and asks are they out the their mind? 

A huge swath of state trust land in southeast Tucson would become a master-planned community over the next 40 years under a development deal expected to be finalized between the state and a Phoenix developer next week.

The developer, Westcor, is expected to receive a permit from the state Land Department ...  Tucson officials called the project one of the biggest in the city’s history that will create a "second city" with residential and commercial development and open space.

I believe the part about the open space anyway.  Tucson already has new developments filled with specs and unwanted open spaces in the lots between them.

 

Mayor Helps Homeless Developers

Within the benevolently entitled Albuquerque Journal story about Mayor Marty helping the homeless  is his statement about how we need some belt-tightening at City Hall. 

Wait.  Didn't he just chastise the City Council during the last election for not cutting taxes ?

Then Marty blames impact fees for the slowing economy.  Really.  It's not national real estate market trends or problems with the credit economy.  Nope.  It is Albuquerque's impact fee ordinance.   

The economy is softening, Chávez said, part of both a natural cycle and, perhaps, jobs flowing to nearby communities seen as more eager for growth.  He said he might review Albuquerque's impact-fee system, which charges development for the cost of roads and other infrastructure needed to serve it.   Sales-tax revenue has been flat the last two months, he said, and it's time to rein in city-government spending.  "I see this as a good thing," he said. "Government must live within its means."

He doesn't explain the connection between how you rein in government spending by reducing development fees.  But whatever. 

In other news:  lower impact fees lead to world peace.   

   

Real Estate Proctology

The Albuquerque Journal's Sean Olsen raises the obvious question again about conflict of interest in Albuquerque' sprawl development.  That's a broad sticky-wicket through which our elected officials apparently carve a very narrow path.

Cummins said his development already has water service and major road access through Paseo del Volcan.  "There is absolutely nothing of benefit that the TIDD brings to us," he said.  (...)

Within this old Alibi story from 2004 is an interesting line. 

Cummins has said he will not vote on any plans that would directly affect the value of his property. But, bureaucratically speaking, to get any closer to the deal, he'd have to be the county commission's staff proctologist. (...)

Greenfields and Marty Chavez

Mayor Marty vetos the TIDD amendments that would have restricted the use of tax increment financing.   Tosses away his responsibility and spins it as city-county cooperation.   1st and 10, Developers.   

Marty throws the ball to the Board of County Commissioners - who'll hide it where no one but Geraldine Amato can find it.  Soon will emerge multiple agreements in a  flurry of many-dead-tree- paperwork that no one will want to read before Christmas.  Hurry before the Legislature tries to block Pandora.    

Carter Bundy on Heath Haussamen presented all the reasoning on why Mayor Marty Chavez should not do what he did before he did it.  He is damning greenfields.   Greenwashing that developer touchdown will be playing on astroturf.   

No Crisis for Old Men

The Denver Post has a story about the Subprime-Lending Crisis that contains some clarity.   

(...)  Structured finance, fueled heavily by mortgage-related securities, generated more revenues for Wall Street firms in the fourth quarter last year than corporate finance, public finance and research combined.

(...) Wall Street's financial engineers are learning a painful lesson that risk can't be packaged away in a financial structure.  "These securities were bought at a level that suggested the risk has gone away. The risk is still the risk. It transmutes whether you like it or not," (Joseph Mason, Drexel University) said.

When markets became aware of that, the pyramid collapsed quickly. As defaults mounted, investment pools invoked their right to return loans that went bad within three months.
Subprime lenders, unaccustomed to holding loans, lacked the cash to pay off these demands. One after another, they folded.

In the past year, more than 190 major lenders, most originating high-cost loans, have folded or gotten out of the business. Two hundred thousand jobs were lost.  Bank of America said in October it would lay off 3,000 workers. The nation's second-largest bank estimates it may need to write off $3 billion in mortgage-related losses.  Such write-offs could be just the early phases of what Deutsche Bank analysts estimate could reach $300 billion to $400 billion in subprime write-downs.

The rating agencies are rapidly downgrading securities they once blessed ... shaking faith in the entire credit market. In some cases, highly rated securities are being downgraded to junk in one swoop, destroying their value.

 

How might this little bump in the economic engine impact the bond capacity of our local governments?  There are an unlimited-number of risk pools with the new TIDDs.    

The risk is still the risk.     

:Saw No Country for Old Men.  Dreamed about falling-sky theories being right.:   

 

Housing Development Still Flipping

The problem with defining housing construction as economic development -  The California situation  from Dr. Housing Bubble:

The main problem is housing is incredibly overpriced and has created enormous dependency for jobs, spending, and other industries that directly depend on a perpetually booming housing market. Just take a look at the number of license growth by the Department of Real Estate here in California. Make no mistake about it, the booming market has created a saturation of jobs in these fields. This happens regularly in bubble economies. Think of the 2 million technology jobs that were lost due to the tech bust. ...

Yesterday a red H2 zoomed past me on east Paseo del Norte.  It had real estate mortgage lending advertising all over it - including a photograph of two blond loanswomen, I presume.  Those in the business must deem such news not applicable here in New Mexico.   Or perhaps they can't care. 

  Still flipping here.   

Nevada Empress on PBS

I turn on the TV last night and there's Patricia Mulroy, The Water Empress. Only the News Hour with Jim Lehrer calls her the Water Czar.  The first, more accurate title, was bestowed by High Country News in 2001.  It is more in keeping with her vampiric ageless stature.

Nevada is a bell weather for New Mexico and they have lots in common.   We have written and thought much about Nevada's  socio-political construct. 

Mulroy got her own little segment in the show and didn't have to answer silly questions on the panel about whether growth was good or bad.   She even got to bash planning in a sentence they used as her opening. 

PAT MULROY:  From a planning perspective, we're assuming the worst.   

I hear disgust in her voice - like she's saying she always assumes the worst from planning. But I'm touchy, I know.

RAY SUAREZ: Pat Mulroy is called the water czar of Las Vegas.

Empress!  She's the Water Empress!  I yell at the TV jumping around trying not to spill the cab.  Big dog sighs.

She describes why farming and ranching must die.  And how its a natural thing.   She's saving Vegas from drought, afterall.   She looks like  a tough cookie.  If I were drought, I wouldn't want to mess with her.

(...)  PAT MULROY: We have to protect this community from that drought, and there's only one way to do it, and that's develop a water supply that is hydrologically separate and apart and not connected in any way to the Colorado River.

So that project is not driven by growth; that project is being driven by what we see the consequences of climate change are on the Colorado River Basin.

RAY SUAREZ: Mulroy argues Las Vegas actually uses only about 10 percent of the state's water, compared to nearly 80 percent consumed by ranchers and farmers up north. And while she says she doesn't want to compromise the food that's grown in the region, it may be time to rethink whether it makes sense to have so many irrigated farms in areas that are naturally so dry.

PAT MULROY: It's the culture of the west, and a lot of what we're talking about here is cultural. You have, what, fifth-, sixth-generation families that have grown up on farms and have lived on farms and on ranches, and you're changing their reality.

And it will be difficult for them to envision it in a different way. I think there's a natural evolution already occurring where some of the less profitable, more difficult to ranch areas are already selling out.

RAY SUAREZ: Those are fighting words to ranchers.

CECIL GARLAND: We're not down there trying to Las Vegas' water. They're up here trying to take our water. That's the simple truth of it. And the point is that in the southwest, with an ever-exploding growing human population, it's on a collision course with the amount of water.

Those people down there are going to have to learn to conserve, have to live within the limits of their own ability to grow, and they have to recognize that. So far as I can tell, they're not willing to do that yet.

The panel talked about growth without ever defining it.  There is population growth, gross receipts tax growth, gross national product growth.  Regional, state or local measures of the economy - like job and income growth can be measured.  And then there is growth in the number of developed acres.  Building growth.  Sprawl growth and redevelopment types of building growth.  18 hole golf course growth. 

But Noooooo.   Its all lumped together.    Tree ring growth is the same as new casinos, is the same as 5000 new people a month.  Growth is growth.  It all needs lots of water and power.

Is the growth good or bad?  The inane question begs the question.  Is it cancerous?   

The closing sentence bugged me too - something about how "city planners" say  stunting growth will cost everyone.   He didn't interview any city planners as far as I saw.  Everybody but Moses was on the panel, but no city planner.  A city planner might have said that sustainability depends on how you build to accommodate growth.  You have to talk about the quality of growth, not just the amount.