Land Values in Fairhope, Alabama

Anne Bellangee Call

[A letter to the editor of Land and Freedom, July-August 1926]

The department "At the Sign of the Cat and Fiddle" in your March-April number, contains quite a little matter apropos of the effect of the land boom that is taking place around us here at Fairhope but entirely omits the most important factor.

I have lived in Fairhope twenty-seven years, practically all my adult life, am the daughter of one of its founders and feel that I have inside information.

I shall make no comment as to the advantages of beginning at the bottom and grading upward or beginning at the top and grading downward. The people understand perfectly that all the rent money is expended for the benefit of the community after the state, county and municipal taxes on our lands, and the improvements of our lessees and the small administrative cost have been paid, but we have at least ten times as many lessees who are not members of the Colony as we have those who are members, some of whom feel that if unimpeded they might fleece the balance of the lessees out of more than their share of the mutual benefit amounts to. There are also many resi dents of the community who are not even lessees, being tenants of our lessees or members of their families. We feel that we have done well to build the second town, in point of population, in the county by application of our land policy, especially as we have welcomed people of all shades of opinion to our community.

For some years I believe our rents did lag far behind the economic rent but for the past several years it has been raised rather sharply and in the past year we have had for local use, after applying the state county and municipal taxes on our land and on the improvements of our lessees, half as much as we had paid in state, county and municipal taxes on the improvements and personal property of our lessees. This for community use after the state, County and town had received their money. Perhaps we are not negligent after all.

The presence of the people causes the rental value of the land of the community to advance. In the past year our population was increased approximately twelve per cent, which increase will be reflected in our next appraisement, but the result of the land boom hereabouts is an increase of about sixty-six per cent in the taxable valuation of our lands. This is on account of speculation, not increase of population in either town or surrounding country. This county is not being developed by new homes and new business to this extent but its lands are changing hands on a speculative basis. This increase in taxes will have to be met from our rents but the real rental value has not been enhanced one iota by the speculation which has caused this increase in tax valuation.

The circumstances affecting such a place as this are not all apparent to the casual visitor; indeed, it is necessary to live in a place, and to study it at that, in order to understand its problems.

At this time the land boom seems to be dead and we feel that the presence of our community has had considerable to do with this desirable result.