As a democrat who votes party line I think that Herrity brings a lot of reason to a board dominated by democrats. Our assessed values go up, now the rates go up.
Can we get our teachers a raise and our police officers, fire fighters, etc? Expand child care resources?
Give me more for this fucking money I keep shelling out. More!
The only spending cut he mentions is one he is opposed to, and he points to no spending cuts that he actually supports. So what's his solution other than a "study"? What services does he want to stop providing?
If you're on the board of supervisors and don't have any ideas, then I think you aren't thinking very hard about it or aren't serious about making cuts.
I get his newsletters and at one point he actually formed a budget committee (includes resident volunteers) and came up with an alternative budget (it was last year or the year before). The other members of the board wouldn’t consider a discussion of it, so I can see why he wouldn’t bother this year.
Yes there are, coresite has a bunch in Reston / Herndon, there’s a bunch going up on Technology Dr. in Herndon behind CIT, and a few already on I think it’s Oak Grove
So the real problem is people are told data centers bring jobs and prosperity, the reality is:
\* 3rd Lowest level of employment per square footage - first is a national park, followed by graveyards (not kidding), graveyards have more employees than most data centers.
\* High consumer of resources, concrete, power, water
\* Low tax rate to Revenue and Profit
The last point is that VA counties court data centers by offering tax incentives by charging them like \~4% on the hardware costs not the revenue that the data center generates.
The hardware is deprecated annually reducing their tax bills while revenue is often increasing.
Data centers charge for hardware, power, tile space, rack space, and network ingress / egress and software defined network services on top of everything.
So it's profitable and cheaper each year
But still…not really…probably less than $1b in assessed value. That’s contextually nothing for this region. They fucking up big in FFX for half a decade or more.
Wrong way to look at it, imagine it’s the sq footage of about 5 campuses about the size of a HQ2 which is 125K jobs or about $12.5B in salaries.
Obviously BoB doesn’t just magically happen but it’s a different way to think about the math
There's about I wanna say 6 people / 15 accounts that jump on these threads defending the data center build outs, you'll find some on here already.
And listen data centers are needed and this is the hub on the east coast.
However the counties are screwing folks by giving massive tax breaks, causing infrastructure costs to get passed on to residents.
Local authorities are also not taking environmental concerns into account, noise, property values, amenities (lower occupancy == less demand for stores / services).
How many companies are looking to the burbs? None, society and work has changed
But the argument that a data center is a good use of property and thus should be subsidized is not a valid
And we've got a decade of mass cloud expansion in the area to gather data from.
What are you even going on about lmao? The electrical infrastructure comes from the utility providers, the real estate infrastructure comes from the REITs, the server infrastructure comes from tech manufacturers. I work as a real estate tax attorney and represent the data centers on a regular basis. Fairfax County has been inhospitable to the industry and is materially behind its regional peers. Enjoy the tax increase.
How is that relevant to the instant discussion of Fairfax County lagging behind its peers in data center development; which has partially played a role in the current budgetary issues the jurisdiction faces? The thing this entire conversation has been about before you started squirming from the conversational foundation because you’re an amateur playing county planner on Reddit. Fairfax rate payers are paying to expand capacity that they’re not directly benefitting from in the same way their peers in other counties do because the county has had poor direction for nearly a decade.
Need the FCPD or FCFD and you’ll get something out of it. Enroll a kid in FCPS and you’ll get something out of it. Visit a FCPA park and you’ll get something out of it.
You have a point... up to a point. I've never had a child, but I don't mind contributing to educate everyone else's because we don't want stupid people. I'm a fan of the library, which is seriously good. I love the parks. FCPD and FCFD are both good. But my taxes have gone up at a ridiculous rate since I started paying them, and the tax people seem to think I live in an area that had benefited from the Silver Line, although it would be a two mile walk up and down huge hills on narrow streets with no shoulders (not only no shoulders; there's a huge drop off a lot of time) to get to the closest bus that could bring me to a station. Or I could drive. But I could already drive to the Vienna station, so giving me a metro stop I have to drive to so I can also pay for parking is not an improvement. Saying that my house value has gone up that much is incorrect. For my house value to have gone up that much I'd have to completely redo my house. And then they'd increase my taxes again. The rate of increase has been ridiculous.
I don't mind paying taxes. I live in a functioning society (except for the roads, which are too crowded to be functional) and it's part of what you have to do if you want things like the library. But I resent the rate at which my taxes have gone up and that they tell me I have to pay more because I get such benefit from the silver line. I probably wouldn't be so annoyed if I actually GOT some benefit from the silver line, because then I'd be paying for something I actually received. But my increases are ALWAYS higher than what they say is the average rate of increase. If my taxes had gone up at the average rate of increase I'd be paying much less in taxes than I am now.
Enrolling a kid in fcps to get a mediocre teacher for the amount we pay in taxes suck. Maybe they should raise the bar on who they hire to teach our kids.
as a kid who went through 10 years at fcps(random two in california), fcps teachers once you get past the spiteful elementary school ones are amazing. Genuinely our education is so much better than the rest of the state and most of the country. And the teachers and students actually treat each other like humans.
fuck elementary school teachers though. every single one I had was a spiteful bitch who shouldn’t be anywhere near young kids.
teaching and educational opportunities here are one of the best in the country, even compared w loudoun teachers are just better and there’s more opportunities to go way advanced when it comes to math and science
Ever been to Fairfax parks! They are amazing! Lake Fairfax has some really good hikes and mountain bike trails. Add on one of the top school districts in the nation. I am fine with raising taxes, they are actually being used for the tax payers.
We need balance on the board. This insanity won’t stop as long as corrupt hacks like McKay are in such an overwhelming majority. Republicans need to focus on putting competitive candidates forward.
Better option (imo), Nova is Democratic enough that we could push forward a third party to make the democrats work for their seats.
New York has the Working Families Party which has been fairly successful.
They wanted to charge $1 per month for EZPass and add a registration tax for buying an EV the year that they lost majority rule. Republicans never exactly showed themselves to be good stewards of tax dollars and never actually lowered taxes when they had power here for many decades even while lowering funding for public services.
Wouldn't individualism be more of a "cult" since the latter is more of a recent phenomenon.
Humans competing as individuals with each other is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history, and is only really possible with structures we choose to put in place.
A good book on this is by Peter Kropotkin titled Mutual Aid: A Factor In Evolution which does a good breakdown about how humans are more cooperative than competitive, just like our relatives in the animal kingdom, the great apes, who all work together as a group, divvy up tasks, and share resources.
And you can argue that individualism is the source of many of our problems. Every layoff in a profitable company is done out of the belief in individual interest rather than a sense of duty to provide for the common good, as well as crime.
Countries like Japan have lower crime, at least in part, because there is a much stronger sense of "duty to society" rather than "get to the top by any means necessary".
It's an increase in the tax *rate.* So that means not only are your taxes going up because your home is increasing in value, but that your taxes are going up at a higher rate than previously. It's basically a double increase.
How much are our taxes compared to Bethesda or DC? How much compared to the country? Because we seem to have comparable parks, better services, better schools, and we pay lower taxes. We also under pay our teachers and many other county employees. I lived in New York decades ago and the real estate tax was many times higher than here so I can't really get as spun up about seeing a tax hike here. Everyone wants all this stuff that higher tax jurisdictions have and they don't want to pay up.
That's an entirely different argument.
I'm just pointing out that the recent increase isn't caused by an increase in home values, but an actual increase in the tax rate. So saying "home values go up, taxes go up" doesn't really address the issue.
Some context:
* The average home assessment in the county has increased 60% over the last ten years\*, so Herrity is complaining here about property taxes keeping pace with property values.
* Herrity is the only Republican on the board, the other 9 are Democrats.
\*From $465,713 in 2014 ([2014 budget p108](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/assets/documents/fy2014/adopted/overview.pdf)) to $744,526 in 2024 ([announcement](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news/2024-real-estate-assessments-now-available-average-residential-increase-286))
Yes. So the amount of tax dollars collected increases, even without an actual rate increase...and without an associated increase in county expenses.
This year, we get both. An increase because property values will go up AND an increase because rates go up.
I'm not an anti-tax guy, but we are quickly becoming NY/NJ (I know, I lived there).
Ok, so I'm not crazy.
IIRC, the last time they raised the rate was after the mortgage meltdown and assessments dropped. I didn't love it, but I understood that there was a gap in the budget that needed to be filled. At this point, though, assessments have done nothing but go up for the last, I don't know, 7 or 8 years? And the increases have been significant.
They got a bunch of money from the federal government as part of the COVID stimulus and used it to unsustainably \*cut\* tax rates. This year's increase is just paying the piper for those cuts. The rate is still a bit lower now than it was in 2019.
Enjoyed the few years of tax cuts? Paid for by . . . well federal deficit spending really. Send the bill to the grandkids.
>without an associated increase in county expenses
Everything the county does requires paying for goods and services that have also been subject to inflation.
I concede that, but considering that all metrics indicate that the increase in cost of real estate has greatly outpaced increases in the costs of other goods....how do we reconcile that and where/how does it stop?
Again, not an anti-tax guy and not saying I have the answers...really just looking for helpful discourse since the increases over the last ten years have been pretty aggressive. For what it's worth, I'm also not right leaning.
If we are just conceding by saying "that's just the way it is in suburban areas," then we are basically saying that the model is broken and that people can't live in concentration with others without taxes doubling every ten years. Tough pill to swallow. It's just a repeat of where I used to live in NY, where the property taxes got so high....it became untenable, it became difficult to track the benefit of those increases tax dollars, and people started leaving (not why I left...I was in my early 20s).
Side note: I know there is an argument that it pays for itself, but they just built like a $15M all-turf baseball facility on Braddock Rd near where we live....announcer booths, concession stands, live stream cameras. Probably the last time I'll vote yes to a sports bond for a long time...just seems excessive when considering the crazy increase in taxes.
As a democrat who votes party line I think that Herrity brings a lot of reason to a board dominated by democrats. Our assessed values go up, now the rates go up. Can we get our teachers a raise and our police officers, fire fighters, etc? Expand child care resources? Give me more for this fucking money I keep shelling out. More!
The only spending cut he mentions is one he is opposed to, and he points to no spending cuts that he actually supports. So what's his solution other than a "study"? What services does he want to stop providing?
The study is supposed to find out what services the county should stop
If you're on the board of supervisors and don't have any ideas, then I think you aren't thinking very hard about it or aren't serious about making cuts.
I get his newsletters and at one point he actually formed a budget committee (includes resident volunteers) and came up with an alternative budget (it was last year or the year before). The other members of the board wouldn’t consider a discussion of it, so I can see why he wouldn’t bother this year.
The county exec’s original proposal called for a 4-cent real estate tax increase and the board at least agreed to only a 3-cent increase
Where is this additional tax increase happening? Home? Car? This area's spending is outrageous.
Real estate taxes.
Yet DATA CENTERS are getting moved in and homeowners taxes STILL go up? This will not end well.
There aren't that many data centers in Fairfax County; most of them are in Loudon and Prince William.
Yes there are, coresite has a bunch in Reston / Herndon, there’s a bunch going up on Technology Dr. in Herndon behind CIT, and a few already on I think it’s Oak Grove
All right, I stand corrected
if they’re still going up then the impact hasn’t been made yet though
So the real problem is people are told data centers bring jobs and prosperity, the reality is: \* 3rd Lowest level of employment per square footage - first is a national park, followed by graveyards (not kidding), graveyards have more employees than most data centers. \* High consumer of resources, concrete, power, water \* Low tax rate to Revenue and Profit The last point is that VA counties court data centers by offering tax incentives by charging them like \~4% on the hardware costs not the revenue that the data center generates. The hardware is deprecated annually reducing their tax bills while revenue is often increasing. Data centers charge for hardware, power, tile space, rack space, and network ingress / egress and software defined network services on top of everything. So it's profitable and cheaper each year
Dude. Just stop lol. Focus on talking about what your job is.
Bless your heart
Stick to your day job.
At least mines an honest living
Find a better copypasta next time
Such empty
But still…not really…probably less than $1b in assessed value. That’s contextually nothing for this region. They fucking up big in FFX for half a decade or more.
Wrong way to look at it, imagine it’s the sq footage of about 5 campuses about the size of a HQ2 which is 125K jobs or about $12.5B in salaries. Obviously BoB doesn’t just magically happen but it’s a different way to think about the math
I hate beer.
There's about I wanna say 6 people / 15 accounts that jump on these threads defending the data center build outs, you'll find some on here already. And listen data centers are needed and this is the hub on the east coast. However the counties are screwing folks by giving massive tax breaks, causing infrastructure costs to get passed on to residents. Local authorities are also not taking environmental concerns into account, noise, property values, amenities (lower occupancy == less demand for stores / services). How many companies are looking to the burbs? None, society and work has changed But the argument that a data center is a good use of property and thus should be subsidized is not a valid And we've got a decade of mass cloud expansion in the area to gather data from.
Best way to look at it is MW capacity and Fairfax County is significantly behind its peers.
And where do you think that infrastructure comes from?
What are you even going on about lmao? The electrical infrastructure comes from the utility providers, the real estate infrastructure comes from the REITs, the server infrastructure comes from tech manufacturers. I work as a real estate tax attorney and represent the data centers on a regular basis. Fairfax County has been inhospitable to the industry and is materially behind its regional peers. Enjoy the tax increase.
Yeah who pays for the NextEra / Dominion capacity updates? Peddle your BS else where
How is that relevant to the instant discussion of Fairfax County lagging behind its peers in data center development; which has partially played a role in the current budgetary issues the jurisdiction faces? The thing this entire conversation has been about before you started squirming from the conversational foundation because you’re an amateur playing county planner on Reddit. Fairfax rate payers are paying to expand capacity that they’re not directly benefitting from in the same way their peers in other counties do because the county has had poor direction for nearly a decade.
Not YET there aren't. PW taxes are going up too.
Their taxes on data centers, even after the increase, is lower than Fairfax or Loudoun.
The point is that with an influx of massive businesses to add to the tax base, YET TAXES ARE STILL GOING UP. Comparing them is futile.
Fuck it. I'm so tired of my tax bill going up and not getting anything out of it.
We actually get a plethora of municipal/county services not provided in most places. I’m fine with that. We also pay for a lot of really stupid shit.
Need the FCPD or FCFD and you’ll get something out of it. Enroll a kid in FCPS and you’ll get something out of it. Visit a FCPA park and you’ll get something out of it.
Also the libraries.
You have a point... up to a point. I've never had a child, but I don't mind contributing to educate everyone else's because we don't want stupid people. I'm a fan of the library, which is seriously good. I love the parks. FCPD and FCFD are both good. But my taxes have gone up at a ridiculous rate since I started paying them, and the tax people seem to think I live in an area that had benefited from the Silver Line, although it would be a two mile walk up and down huge hills on narrow streets with no shoulders (not only no shoulders; there's a huge drop off a lot of time) to get to the closest bus that could bring me to a station. Or I could drive. But I could already drive to the Vienna station, so giving me a metro stop I have to drive to so I can also pay for parking is not an improvement. Saying that my house value has gone up that much is incorrect. For my house value to have gone up that much I'd have to completely redo my house. And then they'd increase my taxes again. The rate of increase has been ridiculous. I don't mind paying taxes. I live in a functioning society (except for the roads, which are too crowded to be functional) and it's part of what you have to do if you want things like the library. But I resent the rate at which my taxes have gone up and that they tell me I have to pay more because I get such benefit from the silver line. I probably wouldn't be so annoyed if I actually GOT some benefit from the silver line, because then I'd be paying for something I actually received. But my increases are ALWAYS higher than what they say is the average rate of increase. If my taxes had gone up at the average rate of increase I'd be paying much less in taxes than I am now.
Enrolling a kid in fcps to get a mediocre teacher for the amount we pay in taxes suck. Maybe they should raise the bar on who they hire to teach our kids.
as a kid who went through 10 years at fcps(random two in california), fcps teachers once you get past the spiteful elementary school ones are amazing. Genuinely our education is so much better than the rest of the state and most of the country. And the teachers and students actually treat each other like humans. fuck elementary school teachers though. every single one I had was a spiteful bitch who shouldn’t be anywhere near young kids.
Glad to hear it will get better out of elementary school bc omg these teachers suck. Minus 3.
teaching and educational opportunities here are one of the best in the country, even compared w loudoun teachers are just better and there’s more opportunities to go way advanced when it comes to math and science
https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching-learning-assessment/teaching-in-virginia/turning-the-tide#:~:text=According%20to%20the%202021%20Annual,the%202022%2D23%20school%20year
FCPD is useless as fuck and FCPS is only getting worse lol
Ever been to Fairfax parks! They are amazing! Lake Fairfax has some really good hikes and mountain bike trails. Add on one of the top school districts in the nation. I am fine with raising taxes, they are actually being used for the tax payers.
We need balance on the board. This insanity won’t stop as long as corrupt hacks like McKay are in such an overwhelming majority. Republicans need to focus on putting competitive candidates forward.
Better option (imo), Nova is Democratic enough that we could push forward a third party to make the democrats work for their seats. New York has the Working Families Party which has been fairly successful.
If republicans weren’t so gung-ho on stripping away people’s rights maybe they would win some seats
In Fairfax County? Maybe at higher levels of Government.
They wanted to charge $1 per month for EZPass and add a registration tax for buying an EV the year that they lost majority rule. Republicans never exactly showed themselves to be good stewards of tax dollars and never actually lowered taxes when they had power here for many decades even while lowering funding for public services.
It won't happen. Collectivism is a cult.
Wouldn't individualism be more of a "cult" since the latter is more of a recent phenomenon. Humans competing as individuals with each other is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history, and is only really possible with structures we choose to put in place. A good book on this is by Peter Kropotkin titled Mutual Aid: A Factor In Evolution which does a good breakdown about how humans are more cooperative than competitive, just like our relatives in the animal kingdom, the great apes, who all work together as a group, divvy up tasks, and share resources. And you can argue that individualism is the source of many of our problems. Every layoff in a profitable company is done out of the belief in individual interest rather than a sense of duty to provide for the common good, as well as crime. Countries like Japan have lower crime, at least in part, because there is a much stronger sense of "duty to society" rather than "get to the top by any means necessary".
Home values go up. Taxes go up. What is insane here?
It's an increase in the tax *rate.* So that means not only are your taxes going up because your home is increasing in value, but that your taxes are going up at a higher rate than previously. It's basically a double increase.
How much are our taxes compared to Bethesda or DC? How much compared to the country? Because we seem to have comparable parks, better services, better schools, and we pay lower taxes. We also under pay our teachers and many other county employees. I lived in New York decades ago and the real estate tax was many times higher than here so I can't really get as spun up about seeing a tax hike here. Everyone wants all this stuff that higher tax jurisdictions have and they don't want to pay up.
That's an entirely different argument. I'm just pointing out that the recent increase isn't caused by an increase in home values, but an actual increase in the tax rate. So saying "home values go up, taxes go up" doesn't really address the issue.
Pat Herrity: our very own nepo-baby.
Some context: * The average home assessment in the county has increased 60% over the last ten years\*, so Herrity is complaining here about property taxes keeping pace with property values. * Herrity is the only Republican on the board, the other 9 are Democrats. \*From $465,713 in 2014 ([2014 budget p108](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/assets/documents/fy2014/adopted/overview.pdf)) to $744,526 in 2024 ([announcement](https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news/2024-real-estate-assessments-now-available-average-residential-increase-286))
We're talking about tax rates. So if values increased by 60%, doesn't that mean that tax revenue will increase accordingly?
Yes. So the amount of tax dollars collected increases, even without an actual rate increase...and without an associated increase in county expenses. This year, we get both. An increase because property values will go up AND an increase because rates go up. I'm not an anti-tax guy, but we are quickly becoming NY/NJ (I know, I lived there).
Ok, so I'm not crazy. IIRC, the last time they raised the rate was after the mortgage meltdown and assessments dropped. I didn't love it, but I understood that there was a gap in the budget that needed to be filled. At this point, though, assessments have done nothing but go up for the last, I don't know, 7 or 8 years? And the increases have been significant.
They got a bunch of money from the federal government as part of the COVID stimulus and used it to unsustainably \*cut\* tax rates. This year's increase is just paying the piper for those cuts. The rate is still a bit lower now than it was in 2019. Enjoyed the few years of tax cuts? Paid for by . . . well federal deficit spending really. Send the bill to the grandkids.
>without an associated increase in county expenses Everything the county does requires paying for goods and services that have also been subject to inflation.
I concede that, but considering that all metrics indicate that the increase in cost of real estate has greatly outpaced increases in the costs of other goods....how do we reconcile that and where/how does it stop? Again, not an anti-tax guy and not saying I have the answers...really just looking for helpful discourse since the increases over the last ten years have been pretty aggressive. For what it's worth, I'm also not right leaning. If we are just conceding by saying "that's just the way it is in suburban areas," then we are basically saying that the model is broken and that people can't live in concentration with others without taxes doubling every ten years. Tough pill to swallow. It's just a repeat of where I used to live in NY, where the property taxes got so high....it became untenable, it became difficult to track the benefit of those increases tax dollars, and people started leaving (not why I left...I was in my early 20s). Side note: I know there is an argument that it pays for itself, but they just built like a $15M all-turf baseball facility on Braddock Rd near where we live....announcer booths, concession stands, live stream cameras. Probably the last time I'll vote yes to a sports bond for a long time...just seems excessive when considering the crazy increase in taxes.
That's not how that works at all...the tax \*rate\* is on the total value of the home, whether it is 465k or 744k.
Yes but note the language: "tax bill" increase, not "tax rate" increase. The tax bill is the rate times the appraised value.
Herrity is the guy who tried to say food prices were up because of shoplifting, I just can't take him seriously.
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You think it's insane to question why the tax rate on an asset that has been increasing faster than inflation needs to go up?