A view of the Chevy Volt, which could be in showrooms in the next few years. (Photo courtesy of GM)
Close-up of the Volt's powertrain system. (Photo courtesy of GM)
General Motors killed their last electric car
in the 1990s. Now the automaker is working on a new
car that could go 40 miles on electricity alone. The
car could be in showrooms in two to three years.
Dustin Dwyer visited the shop where
the new Chevy Volt is being designed:
Transcript
General Motors killed their last electric car
in the 1990s. Now the automaker is working on a new
car that could go 40 miles on electricity alone. The
car could be in showrooms in two to three years.
Dustin Dwyer visited the shop where
the new Chevy Volt is being designed:
Inside the design studio, a milling machine grinds away at a clay model of the Volt.
GM first introduced a concept version of the car last year. Now, designers and engineers
are working on a production version.
The Volt would basically be a hybrid. But it’s different than hybrids on the road today,
because the gas engine would just be a backup. Much of the time, the electric motor
would power the car on its own.
People at GM hope the Volt can improve GM’s image on the environment.
Bob Boniface of GM says the Volt is the real deal:
“This is not just a PR stunt… this is a real program, it’s got real engineers, real designers and obviously a real
building dedicated just to this car.”
Boniface says development of the Volt has been more public than most projects, and that
puts the pressure on for the company to get it right.
Because mobile homes can be transported they're not taxed the way permanent homes are. They're taxed like vehicles (when they're bought and sold). Mobile home owners pay a small tax for the small plot of land they sit on. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
Some officials are saying mobile home owners don't pay their fair share of taxes. Mobile home advocates disagree. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
Mobile home parks like this one in mid-Michigan offer a housing option for low income families. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
Transcript
People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
(sound of expressway traffic)
The Capital Crossings mobile home park sits on rolling farmland near an Interstate highway. The residents of the 15 homes have moved here either to retire or to make the 30 minute daily commute to nearby Lansing, Michigan. And more mobile homes are being pulled in.
(sound of construction)
Workers are building porches and attaching the skirting between the ground and the house. It’s supposed to show permanence, like a foundation. But mobile homes are not permanent. And mobile homes are not taxed the same way as other houses. They’re taxed like vehicles. Taxed when they’re purchased. Taxed when they’re sold. Still there are no property taxes on the homes. Only on the tiny lots on which they sit.
Some government officials say the $3 a month that these park residents have been paying for property taxes don’t cover the costs of police and fire protection or other government services. They want a tax hike to give local governments more money. Dave Morris is a farmer and the local township supervisor.
“We all have to pay our fair share for services such as sheriff, ambulance, fire department as well as schools. Schools is a big issue of course. And they aren’t paying their share. That’s all.”
But advocates for affordable housing say hiking taxes on mobile home residents is more likely just an attempt to discourage that kind of housing. They say zoning mobile homes out of existence has been tried, but taxing them out is a new idea. Higher taxes will likely lead to mobile home parks closing.”
John McIlwain is with the Urban Land Institute. He says as mobile home parks become more expensive to operate, their owners will sell off to subdivision or big box store developers.
“The numbers are going to be so attractive that the people who own mobile home parks are going to be much more interested in selling the land to a housing developer than in continuing to run the mobile home park. So in time the parks are probably going to disappear on their own anyway and trying to raise the taxes on them specifically is simply going to make that day come earlier.”
In Michigan there is a proposal to raise the taxes on mobile home sites four times higher. State Senator Valde Garcia says the $3 a month that mobile home park owners pay for each home site is not nearly enough.
“What we are trying to do is really change the tax structure so it’s fair to everyone. The system hasn’t changed in 45 years. It’s time we do so but we need to do it in a gradual manner.”
Senator Garcia’s colleagues in the state house have voted to raise the tax to $12 a month. He’d like to raise it to at least $40 a month. The mobile home park industry has hired a public relations firm to produce a video criticizing the tax increase.
“Site built homes pay sales tax only the materials used in their homes and don’t pay tax on resale. Manufactured home owners pay sales tax on materials, labor, transportation profit of a home and they pay sales tax every time a home is resold. ”
The two sides don’t agree on the math. Tim Dewitt of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association says $3 a month sounds low because it doesn’t show hidden costs. The biggest cost comes when park owners have to pay the higher commercial property tax instead of the lower homestead tax. Dewitt says the park owners then pass the tax to the home owners whose average family income is only about $28,000 a year.
“That’s our worst fear. It could put people who could least afford any type of tax increase into a tough position.”
15 million people live in mobile home parks around the country. And different local governments have tried to find ways to increase taxes on mobile home parks. But Michigan is one of the first states to propose hiking taxes this much. State Senator Garcia says he is not trying to hurt the mobile home industry or make life harder for mobile home park residents. He dismisses the idea that he’s being pressured by wealthier constituents who don’t like to see the mobile home parks being developed.
John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute says a bias against mobile home parks is part of the mentality that leads to sprawl. When people from the city and the suburbs move a little further into rural areas they want the look and feel of suburbia.
“The mobile home parks are no longer things that they want to see. And so they find ways to discourage those mobile home parks. The ones that are there try to see if they can be purchased, turned into stick built housing or otherwise discourage them and encourage them to move on elsewhere.”
But often the people who move in also want the shopping centers, restaurants and conveniences they once had instead of the mobile home parks.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.
The rapid growth of suburban areas, what some people call urban sprawl, is getting renewed attention by states. New governors in several states are setting up commissions or task forces to address the issue and to find ways to adhere to what’s called “Smart Growth.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that there’s a lot of interpretation of what “Smart Growth” means:
Transcript
The rapid growth of suburban areas, what some people call urban sprawl, is getting renewed
attention by states. New governors in several states are setting up commissions or task forces to
address the issue and to find ways to adhere to what’s called “Smart Growth.” The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that there’s a lot of interpretation of what “Smart
Growth” means:
Many urban planners have been alarmed over the last couple of decades as metropolitan areas have
sprung up where farmland or wooded areas once stood. Following new subdivisions have been
strip malls, parking lots and fast food franchises in a not always attractive fashion.
Last year’s election saw a number of states with new governors and some of them are looking at
what can be done to control that kind of unbridled growth. Michigan’s Jennifer Granholm noted it
during her State of the State speech.
“We will develop a cooperative, common sense approach to how we use our land so we can protect
our forests and farms, prevent the sprawl that chokes our suburban communities and threatens our
water quality, and bring new life to our cities and older suburbs.”
Governor Granholm says she wants “Smart Growth.” It’s a popular term, but what is it? What
does it mean?
“I think that Smart Growth is really hard to – certainly hard to describe.”
Barry Rabe is a Professor of Environmental Policy at the University of Michigan’s School of
Natural Resources and Environment. He says “Smarth Growth” sounds great.
“I don’t know anyone who’s really against Smart Growth. But, you can spend a long academic
seminar or actually a lifetime in search of the one common definition of exactly what that means.
Again, it has sort of an intuitive appeal. It resonates. We can all think of examples that are not so
Smart Growth or dumb growth. But, I think clearly this is something that lends itself to differing
kinds of interpretations by different groups.”
And as you ask the people who’ll be sitting at the table debating “Smart Growth,” it becomes clear
that each one has a different definition.
Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Home Builders. He says “Smart Growth”
is a private citizen building a home wherever he or she thinks is an ideal site.
“Our basis continues to be and our primary focus is, and it will remain, that it’s private property
rights under the U.S. Constitution that have to be maintained and that is an individual right. It is a
citizen’s right. And we have to work with local and state government to make sure that that’s
achieved and balanced.”
Egbert says the culprit causing urban sprawl is not the choices that landowners make. He says it’s
too much government regulation. Egbert says, generally, municipalities that zone areas into large
lots stop home builders from building more houses on smaller plots of land.
Others also place much of the blame for sprawl on government, but for different reasons. Hans
Voss is with the Michigan Land Use Institute.
______________
“Landowners do have a right to live in the area in which they choose as long as they follow local
land-use regulations and pay the full cost of that lifestyle. And right now the taxpayers in the cities
and across the whole states are actually subsidizing that style of development.”
Voss says to implement “Smart Growth,” the government has to stop subsidizing urban sprawl by
building highways and sewer systems that all of us have to pay for with our taxes instead of just the
residents who benefit from them. He says that money could be better used to revitalize older
suburbs and the center of deteriorating cities.
There are a lot more ideas of what “Smart Growth” means… and there’s a bit of public relations
spinning because of the ambiguity of the term “Smart Growth.”
The University of Michigan’s Barry Rabe says we’ll hear a lot about “Smart Growth” for some
time to come.
“It’s one of these buzz words that everybody likes. But, to come up with a common definition of
it, much less figure out how that would be implemented in public policy is tricky.”
Ultimately, compromise will define “Smart Growth” as states grapple with trying to find better ways
to use land without losing so much farmland to sprawling subdivisions and paving over natural areas
for parking lots.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Canada now has a national law to protect endangered species. It comes after nine years of study and debate. The new law takes effect early next year. It’s designed to protect more than four hundred species and their critical habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
Canada now has a national law to protect endangered species. It comes after nine years of study
and debate. The new law takes effect early next year (2003). It’s designed to protect more than
four hundred species and their critical habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan
Karpenchuk reports:
Among the species to be protected are the grizzly bear, sage grouse, swift fox, whooping crane,
the humpback whale and the American pine marten, just to name a few.
Canada’s environment minister says the country’s first ever national endangered species law
fulfils the international commitments Canada made under the Biodiversity Convention.
The law provides for assessing which species are at risk and calls for an action plan to save those
species which are found to be most at risk.
Some environmental groups have welcomed the law as a positive first step, and a signal that
Ottawa has finally accepted some of the responsibility for protecting species and their habitats.
But others are critical. Peter Tabuns is with Greenpeace Canada:
“It’s in the end just a public relations gesture. It will not have any substantial effect on species at
risk in Canada. It won’t fulfill Canada’s obligations under the convention on biodiversity. It is
really a lost opportunity.”
Tabuns says he’s also upset that it will be the federal cabinet ministers, not scientists, that decide
whether an animal will be placed on a protected list.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk
A view of the Chevy Volt, which could be in showrooms in the next few years. (Photo courtesy of GM)
