Nation's Building News Online

NAHB Team Helps Builders Win Political Challenges

When home builders in Rapid City, SD, were faced with ballot initiatives to create a $1,000 impact fee for a water hook-up and $1,000 for a sewer connection for each new home they built, they went to NAHB and found the political expertise they needed to alert their community to the problem.

“We had a tremendous amount of help from NAHB’s State and Local Political Operations,” said Janette McIntyre, who is the executive officer of the Black Hills Home Builders Association. “They came in like an army and bulldozed the place.”

The NAHB State and Local Political Operations team produced direct mail explaining why the proposed measures were bad for new prospective home buyers in Rapid City, bad for existing residents and bad for the city’s economic vitality. They helped form a coalition of like-minded groups, wrote press releases, coordinated a telephone campaign and television advertising to get out the vote and used polling to measure how effective a job they were doing.

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When the voters spoke, they defeated the sewer proposal decisively, by 900 votes, but approved the water fee by a scant 90 votes.

Since then, the city has implemented the $1,000 fee for water, and builders have been fighting it. The mayor has been waiving the fee for big developers and out-of-towners, says McIntyre, but suing small local builders to pay it.

The fee is the only issue in today’s mayoral campaign in Rapid City, according to McIntyre. And with nine out of 10 city council members opposing him, she is confident his time is just about up and home builders are looking forward to working with a new mayor to help reverse the water tax.

NAHB’s State and Local Political Operations Department provides a broad range of services, including campaign schools, candidate training, list development, targeting, direct mail and radio and television production. It can help builders faced with political challenges at the ballot box manage a successful campaign and mobilize grassroots support. By mobilizing voters, it also helps maximize the impact of the housing vote in key congressional elections.

For more information, at NAHB e-mail Alastair Macaulay or Ashley Geyer, or call them at 800-368-5242 x8584 and x8126. NAHB members only can click here.

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