The “New” Asphalt Plant #10: From Pipe Dream to Reality

frankhui

(

Continuing from #9

)

As promised, here is one of the pathways to the new

D.T. Brown County Park

. The first stop is another public park built

1/4 century ago,

2500 miles to the west

.

A Pipe Dream Came True

In

this map

, you can see the city owned

George Page Park

. It was developed as part of the neighboring ~250-home project. The land was originally owned by IBM . It was sold to KB Home in 1995. In exchange for a high density plan, KB gifted this park brand new to the city.

The park takes up about 20% of the total land, and the land cost was about 20% of the house price. So the park did add ~4% cost to each house. But the upside for KB Home is a more marketable new neighborhood. I probably paid ~10% more for my new house, just to have the privilege of having park only a few steps from my front door. The downside for me is a smaller backyard. But I bet there are plenty of folks like me who rather traded a bigger backyard for a much nicer park in front. In the end, the city got a free park, plus ~ $300K / year extra in property tax, which is more than enough to maintain this pretty few acres, a true triple-win success story.

Forsyth can do Better Than San Jose
25X bigger if not 25X better, or at least 25-year newer.


Once the quarry ceases operation not far into the future, Land-P would be considered a piece of junk , with a big pile of gravel and a deep hole in the ground. It might still fetch $5M - $10M before improvement. But it could be more profitable if the developer copy KB Home by gifting it undeveloped to the county in exchange for a new public park.

#1: With a beautiful park on site, Land-A & B could fatch 10% more developed or $100M+, a nice return for less than $10M investment;

#2: The $100M+ extra property value will automatically lead to $1M+ / year extra property tax, which is plenty to payoff a park bond needed to build and maintain this new park.

A bigger issue is the naming of this new park. Not many will be fond of having a “Dick” (as in Dick Creek) in its name. If Commissioner Brown is able to jump start this park project before the end of his term this Dec, he definitely deserves to have the park named after him. Otherwise, the commissioner there after will be more than happy to take the credit.

(To be continued: more on the “Else” )

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