mjkuhns wrote:Matthew Lee wrote:My point is, and feel free to find facts if it refutes it, that single family homes in Lakewood are at a premium and houses are selling faster than ever.
First it was "there are many, many people who actually want to live in Lakewood. Thus, housing prices have increased." If this statement had any point, it was an assertion that population pressure was driving up house prices.
That assertion having been disproved, now it's "single family homes in Lakewood are at a premium and houses are selling faster than ever" which seems in this context not actually to make a point in favor or against anything that is at issue.
If my own meaning needs to be made more explicit, it's this:
I am out of patience with people trying to brush aside dissatisfaction by saying "Lakewood is popular." There are two problems with this. First, it's fundamentally an invalid argument. It is factually accurate to say that there are many, many people who actually want to live in the United States—but that does not delegitimize complaints about the direction of our country. (Nor does it necessitate rising house prices.) Second, it is factually
inaccurate to claim that Lakewood is growing, and it is unethical to imply such to be the case.
I am out of patience with people who do. Those who continue to do so after being confronted with the facts are simply engaged in deception, and I am too old to waste my time on bad-faith argument. By the same token, I have no interest in trying to engage with people who move the goalposts between one comment and the next.
Mr. Kuhns,
You are right that the population has shrunk in Lakewood. I also believe this is more of a size of household thing rather than people running for the hills. When my parents grew up in Lakewood there were 15-20 families off the top of their head that had 4+ kids, some even with 10+. When I was growing up in Lakewood, I knew nearly 10 families in that range. The largest having 13 kids. Now, of people in Lakewood that I personally know, I can think of less than a handful with 4+ kids. To Mr. Kindt's point, we have an aging portion of the population where 1-2 people are in a household. The younger folks in town, tend to also have 1-2 people in a household, as they don't have children, or not yet starting a family. I don't think Mr. Lee or myself are necessarily incorrect in the fact that people actually want to live in Lakewood, and it's helping drive up prices. It's just a matter of the sizes of the households. In recent years, I've also met quite a few people who have moved to Lakewood from out of state, and love the city-life aspect, but also being a smaller town that's walkable, with unbelievably affordable housing, in comparison to where they came from.
It's hard for me to argue that every penny the county charges us in property tax is justifiable. I find issues with some programming, especially the recycling program, which has seemed to get more and more problematic in recent years, and makes me feel we're going backwards. But, I digress.
We are also likely walking a fine line with taxes over the years, as that can be the difference in some affordability versus unaffordability for some in a mortgage. If the bank doesn't catch the increase in time, that can be doubly painful later on for a homeowner. I hope county leaders are beginning to look more and more a cost savings for when the economy tumbles again (not if, when).
By and large, I feel the schools have been pretty responsible with the money, especially when they refinanced a ton of debt last year to save over $500K in annual interest expenses. That was a smart move. The revaluations are a tough pill to swallow, but maybe it reduces, or possibly eliminates (though doubtful on eliminating) the amount the schools will need to ask for in an operating levy. There are a lot of boomerang residents (I am one) that return to Lakewood after college, or moving out of the area for a job, to raise a family, so the school levies, if done in a smart manner, are a wise investment into Lakewood's future.