Letter to the Editor: A divisive initiative

Congratulations are in order for Scott, Amelia, and Nick. Judging from last week’s City Council meeting (as well as all of the letters to the editors), your proposed vacancy tax has become the most divisive issue that has affected SLT in decades. You’ve pitted the old against the young, the haves against the have-nots, families who have roots that are decades old against newcomers.

Congratulations. You have introduced an initiative that is truly un-American. It goes against one the core of beliefs that there should be no taxation without representation. You have hidden things like paying for stormwater retention ponds in the feel-good blanket of “affordable housing.” And to what end? Will it crash the housing market and make South Lake more affordable? Ask any real estate expert and they will tell you about all of the cash that is on the sidelines right now. Your neighborhoods won’t become yours, they’ll become just a fraction of a portfolio of any one of the Wall Street corporations that are buying up all of America’s rentals. Will it convert second homes into long-term rentals? Will your magic number of 20 percent conversion occur? Of course! Second homeowners never realized that they could rent their homes out as opposed to using them for themselves, their families, their friends, for holidays and celebrations, for skiing and summers, and for whatever reason that they had to enjoy their property as they saw fit.

There are so many flaws with the proposed tax to begin with. Why is the proposed tax not percentage-based? Why is a 1,000 sq ft home taxed at the same rate as a 10,000 sq ft home? And if you’re a full-time resident with a spare bedroom, shouldn’t you be taxed on that as well?

Is there an affordable housing issue in SLT? Yes. Is that same issue affecting much of America? Yes. Is proposing an un-American, sneaky, divisive initiative that pits neighbors against neighbors the way to solve it? No.

Do not support the vacancy tax initiative, there are better ways to solve our problems.

- Keith Endlich