The city of Chico has a lot to do with the cost of housing

Last night my husband and I realized, it’s T-Day minus 9, time to make a foray into the grocery store and stow up some food so we don’t have to go during those last few hysterical days. I though, we’re so smart, we’ll avoid the mob, get ahead of the panic, get in and out before anybody looks at the calendar…

The parking lot at Winco was looking good at 8:15 am. I had my list in hand, and my shopping bags slung over my shoulder. I grabbed a cart with no janky wheel and I walked on through the door, feeling pretty confident.

The mayhem usually sets in at the produce section. Winco does have good deals on produce, today they had a big box of blueberries for $4. I noticed, not only were there alot more people than I had sensed in the parking lot, but they already seemed aggressive. Already? Really?

And then my husband came around the corner – “hey, there’s free turkeys, should we get one?” So, that’s it, the lure of a free turkey is turning these people into animals. I think Winco does this every year, with a minimum purchase. Butterballs not included, but wow, they had a bin the size of a small sedan, full to the brim with free turkeys.

Which is weird, cause I just heard on the news that the price of turkeys is up this year. Says AI –

Yes, the price of turkeys is up this year, with some sources citing an 11% to 25% increase in retail prices and a 40% rise in wholesale prices compared to last year. Key factors contributing to the higher cost include supply chain issues, higher feed and labor costs, inflation, and recent avian influenza outbreaks that have reduced the available turkey population. 

So Winco is giving away huge turkeys, FREE. Due to an increase in the wholesale price? What? Can you believe anything you hear on the news?

That is how those who sell drive the buyers to pay more – the whole supply and demand thing, and yeah, they’re willing to lie about supply. Watch “Trading Places,” it’s a nice Christmas movie about how the stock market works. Hysteria drives up the price and drives people to buy. Hysterical people are easier to steer, like a herd of cows.

Speaking of hysteria, you hear alot from the government and the media, about the “housing shortage”. Drive around Chico, that is a total crock of shit. There is new housing going in ALL OVER CHICO, but neither new home prices nor rents are going down. Why? Because the city of Chico keeps raising permit fees for everything from lot splits to sidewalks and gutters. They charge thousands of dollars for a “survey” to determine whether or not you can even develop a piece of property.

Here’s a funny side note – in one of those recent agendas I’ve read, staff suggests decreasing the thickness of sidewalks in new subdivisions, an attempt to lower costs for developers who have complained about the new fees. Don’t lower the fees, just stick it to the residents, in the form of shoddy, cheap construction? As long as the city gets their fees. The city of Chico is not interested in lowering the cost of homes – the price you pay is the basis of the property tax value, even if your sidewalk will buckle within a few years.

Something I’ve always considered but never heard in the public discussion of housing costs are property taxes, insurance, or utilities. The other day I finally heard a reporter talk about it on the national news, as if she just found out. Locally, the city has a lot to do with these costs.

Property tax evaluation is based on the price paid by the buyer. The evaluation goes up 1% per year. Not to mention the school bonds and other assessments, many of which are added to your property taxes without a ballot. Also, if you do any sort of permitted work to your house the assessor can show up without notice and reassess you for more – even on necessary repairs like a new roof.

And then there’s the insurance. Right now Chico has a high fire-risk rating because of overgrown street trees laying in power lines all over town, and that raises all our home insurance. They’ve hired the same contractors used by PG&E to evaluate trees, you’ve been seeing them all over the old neighborhoods and the park. We’ve had several trees marked on and around our property, but nobody has shown up to do the work. Then we see more contractors coming around making new marks on different trees. When will the work get done? We asked the contractor who came to our door to get permission to trim a tree out of the power lines running to our neighbor’s house. The answer – he was just there to get the permission slip. But would the work get done? “Maybe in three or four months, or the city could deny it…” He said we wouldn’t know until the tree company showed up on our property. Because of the condition of the trees in our neighborhood, our property insurance has gone from $900/year to over $2,000 in just the last couple of years.

And finally, the utilities. We all know what happened to PG&E rates after they were made to pay restitution for the various wild fires they’ve caused. At the same time Cal Water has raised the cost per tier while decreasing the amount of water per tier. Recently they noticed customers that they will be charging an additional $2 per ccf, to recover costs for work done all over town, whether or not your neighborhood sees any benefit from that work. And the garbage company raised their rate this year as well.

The city and county both could mount a formal complaint against the utility rate increases but have never made any such attempt. The city of Chico collects a “franchise fee” from PG&E and a Utility Use Tax from Cal Water, both of which are tacked on to the bill. Utility tax is 5% of the bill, and is also one of the city’s top sources of income. Of course they would have no interest in helping residents lower their utility bills.

So when you hear about “the cost of living” you really have to think what drives the cost of living. Your behavior has more to do with it than you think.