Taxes, housing density could increase if state takes away local authority, elected officials warn

It's Feb. 9. Local elected officials are livid over legislative push to take away their power over zoning and unionization. New GOP head spells out plan to fight redistricting referendum.

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Local elected officials gave state legislators an earful this week about General Assembly bills that would interfere with local zoning decisions and force collective bargaining with employee unions.

Since employee costs are the largest chunk of the local schools’ and governments’ budgets, allowing employees to unionize could cost taxpayers plenty. James City County vice chair Ruth Larson told Williamsburg Watch a worst-case scenario could result in an increase of nearly a third in real estate taxes.

With Democrats in control of both the executive and legislative branches of state government, this session has seen a flurry of bills that would centralize more local decision making at the state level, and tax consumers on everything from car repairs to Netflix subscriptions.

In pushing to take away local decision making powers, the Democrats may have actually created a bipartisan stance at the local level.

Democratic legislators are “pushing a lot of bills (with) t…