20070302 Carroll unprepared to attract new jobs

Carroll unprepared to attract new jobs

Growth and Development

March 3^rd, 2007

Kelsey Volkmann, writing for the Baltimore Examiner has an article in the March 2^nd, 2007 edition of the paper about Carroll County’s current inability to attract jobs and commercial tax base.

Attracting meaningful jobs and employment and tax base in Carroll County is critical to Carroll County’s future. Yet getting the public policy in Carroll County to chart a different course that takes into consideration the importance of attracting jobs and employment is like changing the course of the Titanic in our county - considering the present level of rampant NIMBYism.

And zoning laws in Carroll County are tantamount to that acronym, something to the affect of BANANAS – “Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.”

Hardly a month goes by when folks do not rally against any new business and economic development in a negative contagion that has its roots in a sea change of public opinion against any new housing development.

As much as I have personally had enough of the new houses folks must begin to understand that there is a difference between economic development and residential development.

If that understanding does not develop soon, we will never be able to pay the necessary property taxes to keep the ever-increasing level of services in Carroll County.

Not to mention the enormous “transportation tax” Carroll County citizens are paying to commute to meaningful employment outside of the county.

See my post from December 9th, 2000: 20001209 Transportation 2nd Biggest Family Exp.

A report released November 30 by the Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) finds that households in the Baltimore region spend, on average, 14.7 percent of their budget, or more than $5,000 per year, on day-to-day transportation. That places transportation costs higher than health care, education, food, or any other household expenditure except shelter.

The report, "Driven to Spend," compiled data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and found that the poorest fifth of Americans pays a significantly larger percentage of income -- 36 percent—on transportation.

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Carroll ‘unprepared’ to attract new jobs

Kelsey Volkmann, The Examiner

Mar 2, 2007 3:00 AM

Carroll County - Carroll “is wholly unprepared to take advantage” of opportunities to attract new jobs, a new study reveals.

“Despite its size, location [and] educated and affluent population, Carroll’s economic performance is still that of a rural residential suburb,” according to a report from consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff…

“Carroll’s current inventory of zoned industrial land is in the wrong places, too broken up and outside existing sewer and water services areas.”

Consultants presented their findings Thursday to the Economic Development Commission.

Read the rest of her article here.

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