Re: "Open spaces pinching suburbs," Aug. 12:

The Inquirer has featured letters, stories and editorials on saving open space and the negative effects of exploding traffic congestion. Voters in the southeast are fed up with sprawl and troubled by the loss of open space and farms. Therefore, open space referendums continue to be placed before voters, and time and again, voters have voted to increase their taxes to conserve land. Over half of the townships in Chester County have approved such initiatives.

By doing so, voters show that they understand that development does not pay for itself. If it did, we would not be hit with annual local, county and school property-tax increases. Every time a new development replaces a farm, it causes large and permanent tax increases as taxpayers are forced to expand school budgets, build and maintain new water and sewer lines and roads, and provide expanded municipal and county services to serve new developments.

This point was made yet again at the end of the article on land preservation costs. When confronted with the choice of saving land or losing it to new development, local officials agreed that development would impact municipal budgets tenfold.