02/04/1991 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

park simply are not present in those cities. And on a micro - scale those other cities have dense development with few if any wetlands separating the developed areas. A second reason for high property taxes in Lino Lakes is the abundance of large -lot single-family developments. In the west part of the city there are approximately 1000 acres of one and 2 1/2 acre lot subdivisions. The density is so low that costs for snowplowing and .police protection are abnormally high and are reflected in higher property taxes for each individual dwelling. In the east part of Lino Lakes there are about 200 acres of large lot development. A third reason for high property taxes is the lack of a commercial and industrial base. Minnesota's property tax laws are such that residences pay relatively low taxes. Commercial and industrial structures on the other hand can contribute as high as five per cent of their market value and annual property -tax payment. Residential rates by comparison presently start at about one per cent of the first $68,000 of value. A fourth reason for the city's high property taxes concern the school districts and their level of services and tax base. As discussed in the section on Manufactured and mobile homes, the Centennial School District has a very large number of residences from which it gets little tax money. Again, the result is the taxes lived against the available tax base become relatively high. The hidden problem with this situation is that little money is available for improving services or infrastructure. Parks cannot be expanded, recreation programs are lost in the budget scramble to basic services such as police and fire, and programs for periodic road and utility improvements never get started. In Lino Lakes the issue of property taxes and tax base planning are so overriding that they must be considered in land use planning. Commercial and Industrial Land Use Needs: In September of 1987 the Metropolitan Council published the results of its study of land use in the Twin Cities Area. The people at the council had studied aerial photos and after some field checking determined their measurements of different land uses were within 1.5 percent of being totally accurate. That's not bad. The Metro Council study gave totals for several different land uses for each minor civil division in the area. Totals were also provided for combinations of places such as "inner ring suburbs". As a point of information Lino Lakes is in what was defined as the "developing ring suburbs." Page 10