Prop 1 Open Thread (Austin: apartment, appraise, estimate)

[10scoachrick]

Lies...damned lies...and STATISTICS

[gpurcell]

Originally Posted by Novacek

Where? I'm pretty sure they've used the former. As the later is basically meaningless (it's too skewed by outliers). Real statisticians use medians, not means.

"That's why it's ~$200 /household/year. If it was spread over 30 years it would be a _lot_ less."

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

"That's why it's ~$200 /household/year. If it was spread over 30 years it would be a _lot_ less."

1. You said the CoA was conflating.

2. Excuuuse Me for using /household as a shortcut for median on an internet forum. As I said, it should be obvious what I mean as the statistical mean is meaningless (no pun intended) in this context.

3. You still haven't addressed that you _completely_ forgot about commercial properties in your calculation.

[gpurcell]

“It’ll cost about the same per household as going to one movie a month, and once rail is built you’ll actually be able to make it to where you’re going and be on time,” Mayor Leffingwell emphasized.


Both lies.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

“It’ll cost about the same per household as going to one movie a month, and once rail is built you’ll actually be able to make it to where you’re going and be on time,” Mayor Leffingwell emphasized.


Both lies.

$217 / 12 = $18 /month.


You're right. It's _cheaper_ than one movie a month.

(~$10 /ticket * 3 or so people /household).

[HappyTexan]

Doesn't ACC also want to do a bond issue with a tax increase to home owners as well ?
All this nickel and diming to an already high prop tax in Austin is just going to drive middle class Joe out of Austin.

[ATX Wahine]

Still stuck on that $217 figure I see. Who exactly signs your paycheck for propagandizing internet forums with rosy promises full of bad math, anyway?

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Nor Cal Wahine

Still stuck on that $217 figure I see.

Stuck, no. I expect it to be less.

1. The total project estimation includes a _large_ buffer for possible overruns.

2. It assumes all 400M of roads have to be bonded, and we don't get any money from Fed/State/County/Campo.

3. More property is going to be added to the tax rolls. Even more of TCAD decides to finally start assessing commercial properties more (as there was noise this year).


But it's a reasonable point to start, since it will be about there.

Originally Posted by Nor Cal Wahine

Who exactly signs your paycheck for propagandizing internet forums with rosy promises full of bad math, anyway?

No one, who signs yours?

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Nor Cal Wahine

I'll repeat again that most homes in Austin are currently valued at over 200k. Which means the taxpayer's bill will likely be significantly higher than 217/yr.

You're forgetting that half of Austin doesn't live in houses, but in apartments.

[ATX Wahine]

And you seem to be forgetting that the average Austin home value is well over 200k which is the basis for that 217 figure. I'm sorry, but that bugs me. You make a very passionate argument on a topic that I respect (coming from SF with one of the best urban transportation systems around) but it's one flawed with bad math. I won't continue nitpicking that pesky detail but it's a pretty important one.