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9 In the article on the conveyance appearing in The Hook this week, Councilmember Richards states: “This transfer will not affect the price of the house, and it will not put money in the pockets of the Kasters.” I disagree. Adding the city’s 1250 square feet of land to the Kasters’ lot will increase the lot size b y 33%. If the Kasters were to sell their house, currently on the market for $289,000, without acquiring title to the 1250 square feet of city - owned land that they treat as part of their lot, their house would fetch a lower price than it will fetch with th e addition of the city land. According to the diagrams I have seen, the Kasters currently own approximately 3750 square feet of land. Adding the city’s land to their lot, they will own approximately 5000 square feet of land. Any reasonable homebuyer wou ld pay substantially more for a house built on a 5000 square foot lot than he or she would pay for an identical house located on only a 3750 square foot lot. To illustrate the absurdity of the Kasters’ request for free city land that the Kasters intend t o sell for value, consider the following example: Imagine that you own an old car that you never use but have not bothered to sell. A friend asks if she can borrow your old car indefinitely, offering to pay the insurance and maintain the car but not purc hasing the car. You agree, and your friend uses your old car for several years. One day, your friend informs you that she would like to sell your car to a third party and asks if you would give her title to the car for free so that she can sell it for va lue. Giving your friend the car for free so she can immediately sell it to someone else is the same as giving your friend a cash gift equal to the car’s sale price since she never paid you for the car for which someone else is going to pay her. The Kast ers are essentially making an identical request of the city. They have been borrowing, with the city’s permission, 1250 square feet of city land for years, knowing that land does not belong to them. Now they want the city to give them title to the land f or free so that they can sell it to a third party. If the city gives them the land for free, the city will essentially be giving the Kasters a cash gift equal to, at a minimum, $3750. While I have no doubt that the Kasters would enjoy such a windfall, th e proceeds from the sale of the city’s land belong in the city’s budget, not in the Kasters’ pockets. In The Hook, Councilmember Richards also argues that the city should give away free land because, once in private hands, the land will generate property tax dollars. This argument certainly supports conveying the land to the Kasters, but it presents no justification for giving the land to them for free. Since their house is for sale, and since they want to sell their house, along with the adjacent city - owned parcel, the Kasters certainly can be expected to pay $3750 for the city’s land if the city requires consideration. The city’s land will be in private, taxable hands regardless of whether or not the council sells the land or gives it away for free. That the 1250 square feet of land will become taxable once the Kasters own it does not justify giving away the land for free. At the city’s real property tax rate of 1.09%, annual property taxes on the 1250 square foot parcel will be $40.88. At that r ate, it will take the city 92 years to collect $3750 in property taxes on the parcel. Several members of the council noted that the city has traditionally given away land for free under similar circumstances. Even if the city has done this in the past, it is a misguided policy and a waste of public resources. However, it is far from clear that giving away parcels the size of what the Kasters want is consistent with the council’s past policy. In his memo, Mr. Brown lists 11 conveyances of city land dati ng back to 1995. Although the city conveyed land without consideration six times, it received consideration five times (monetary consideration in four instances and consideration in the form a “land swap” once). Let’s examine the city conveyances made w ithout consideration. In one instance (Megan Ct., August 4, 2003), that same land had recently been conveyed to the city by the developer to whom it was returned, so the circumstances are not analogous to the Kasters’. In another four of the conveyances, the amount of land conveyed was less than 20 square feet, about the size of a dining room table. (In contrast, 1250 square feet is about the size of a two bedroom home.) Only once, in the October 4, 1999 conveyance of 401 square feet from the Route 250 Bypass right - of - way, did the city give away land for