Mansfield

Earlier this month, the City of Hendersonville received a formal legal letter from attorneys representing the Home Builders Association of Middle Tennessee. The letter urges city officials to abandon proposed impact fee ordinances and instead raise property taxes if additional revenue is needed to support growth. In other words, the development lobby is openly arguing that existing homeowners should pay higher property taxes to subsidize new residential development.

I just cannot believe they actually said the quiet part out loud.

In black and white, the Home Builders Association’s own lawyers are now openly arguing that property taxes should be raised so existing homeowners can pay for new development that benefits developers.

At least they are finally being honest. Let’s be crystal clear about what this letter says.

When developers and the Home Builders Association oppose impact fees, adequate facilities taxes and growth controls, they are not opposing government overreach. They are opposing accountability. They want private profit insulated while public risk is guaranteed. They want the benefits of growth privatized and the costs socialized onto taxpayers who never asked for high-density development in the first place.

What makes this even more offensive is that this outcome did not happen by accident. The Home Builders Association lobbied for the 2006 County Powers Relief Act, a law that stripped counties of the ability to require growth to pay for itself while preserving that authority for cities. That law forced counties into one option and one option only: raising property taxes. Now, nearly 20 years later, the same interests are sending letters through their attorneys telling cities to do exactly what that law was designed to force. This is not coincidence. This is the system working exactly as the lobby intended.

For nearly a decade, I have been saying the same thing, backed by data, audits and basic math. Residential growth does not pay for itself. Every credible fiscal analysis shows that when growth is not required to cover its own infrastructure and service demands, local governments are left with two choices, raise property taxes or pile on debt. This letter does not dispute that reality. It embraces it. The development lobby’s solution is not better planning, not responsible pacing and not paying their fair share. It is forcing the bill onto retirees, working families and fixed-income homeowners who are already struggling to stay in their homes.

In February 2023, the Sumner County Commission formally declared it “fundamentally unfair” to require citizens to fund growth through ever-increasing property taxes and asked the General Assembly for parity with cities. That resolution was ignored. The bills were killed. The lobby won. And now, with stunning arrogance, the same lobby is openly telling local governments to raise property taxes and send the bill to existing homeowners. That is not growth policy. That is corruption wrapped in legal letterhead.

This is exactly why I have consistently supported policies that make growth pay for growth, including maximum adequate facilities taxes allowed by law, legally defensible impact fees, temporary moratoriums when infrastructure is overwhelmed and an end to the growth Ponzi scheme where private profit is protected and public sacrifice is mandatory. Growth itself is not the enemy. Unpaid-for growth is.

When developers argue that property taxes should be raised instead of requiring growth to pay its way, they are making their priorities unmistakably clear. Their profits matter more than your mortgage, your retirement, and your ability to remain in your home. I will continue to stand with taxpayers and residents, not special interests, and I will continue to call this exactly what it is.

Growth should pay for growth. Anything else is a rigged system.

Jeremy Mansfield represents the 16th District on the Sumner County Commission. Reach him at [email protected].