Landowner Linwood Higgins wants it both ways: He wants the town of Scarborough to provide utilities to his holdings along the Haigis Parkway – utilities that are making his land far more valuable than it already was – and he wants to avoid paying for it.
The town has already agreed, in cooperation with landowners, to cover half the cost of the installation. (The plan is to fund it with future revenue from taxes on those developments that everyone hopes will occur along the parkway, rather than making the entire town pay.)
The town even agreed to allow landowners to pay their assessments over time, rather than requiring one lump sum, as was initially proposed.
But now Higgins wants out altogether. He was one of the biggest backers of the town’s plans to develop the parkway, and stands to benefit more than anyone else because he owns more property, and with more frontage on the road, than anyone else.
His lawsuit, which we learn about on Page 1, asks a judge to void the $1.4 million assessment the town has charged him for his share of the utility-installation costs.
It is a big number. And the land in question is presently assessed by the town at just under $600,000 – without gas, electric, water and sewer. But the utilities make that land far more valuable, and developing the land would add value as well.
Higgins has objected to the cost – and to his share of it – all along, so it’s not a surprise he has filed suit now that the bills are in the mail.
He claims that the town’s bill for the utilities installation exceeds the value he’ll realize from their presence, and claims that he is unfairly targeted by the formula the town used to devise the assessments, which took into account the area of land a person or company owned, and the road frontage that land has on Haigis Parkway.
The town’s concept was that both landowners and the taxpayers at large would benefit from the installation of the utilities. So they decided to split the cost with the landowners.
If the landowners had banded together to install power, water, sewer and natural gas on their own, they would have had to raise about $10 million – the cost the town is fronting. There would not have been anyone stepping up saying they would pay half the cost, or anyone saying they would cover the expenses now and could get paid back later.
Landowners who want to keep their land open and free of development would have a strong argument against the requirement to pay. But that’s not a category Higgins is in.
He stands to make a lot of money – beyond the $1.4 million assessment – whether he develops the land himself or sells it to another developer. The town has offered him a sweet deal, and he should take it.
That’s just Dandy!
Scarborough’s own Gym Dandies are headed to New York in November, we learn on Page 1. They will help the nation celebrate Thanksgiving, as they have twice previously helped the country mark Independence Day in Washington, D.C., and are slated to do again in 2006.
Those kids (and their adult helpers) work super-hard, and have developed acrobatic skills few others of any age will ever have. Congratulations to them!
Jeff Inglis, editor
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