Cost of living in S.L. has risen and rising

Already the Wasatch Front's highest taxed city, Salt Lake has grown more expensive to live in the past five years, a Deseret Morning News review has found.

In fact, when various city policy changes take effect this year, city leaders will have approved tax and fee hikes totaling $170.48 annually in the period between 2000 and 2004. That figure includes a 26 percent hike in water rates and a 59 percent increase in sewer bills.

This year alone, the Salt Lake City Council, Salt Lake Mosquito Abatement District and the Salt Lake City Board of Education are all poised to raise taxes a total of $40.28 yearly for the owner of an average house in the city limits valued between $175,000 and $190,000.

City businesses will pay more. A business with the same value as the average house in Salt Lake City will pay $73.25 more yearly.

The Library System increase will be the subject of a truth-in-taxation hearing tonight and the other two increases will face similar hearings next week.

"I've been wondering how much can people bear," councilman Van Turner said. "It's a tough call. I'd like to say we'd lowered taxes. I'd like to have gasoline be lower. I'd like to have all these prices be lower, but they've all gone up."

Councilman Carlton Christensen concedes the city has probably taxed residents to the limit.

"I think we've kind of hit the maximum of what people can expect," he said. "For some of the retired people, we've probably exceeded it."

The increases come at a time when city leaders are making a push to encourage more residents to move back to Salt Lake City. City leaders have given downtown living tours, and Mayor Rocky Anderson is preparing a plan he says will bring 15,000 new residents to Salt Lake City by 2007.

But with the city's high taxes and fees, some residents have already shied away from Utah's capital.

Last year, residents in Mount Aire, near 3000 South and 1500 East, won a fight not to be annexed into Salt Lake City.

"It was actually a matter of money," Mount Aire resident Kathy Bagley said. "I computed it was going to cost me an extra $450 a year (in increased taxes)."

A review of city documents from 2003 shows for every $150,000 of assessed property in Salt Lake City, taxes were $157.25 more than taxes county residents pay for the same property. The major difference is the $371.75 Salt Lake City charges for municipal services as opposed to the $237.44 the county charges.

For commercial property, the difference is more pronounced, with city businesses paying $285.90 more yearly for every $150,000 worth of property, according to city documents.

And those 2003 figures don't include the three tax increases city residents face this year.