Just when I thought Tucson’s closing and decorating 80 downtown and university-area parking spaces for a national parking day was its worst idea of 2008, a City Council subcommittee has proposed an even worse one.

Councilwomen Regina Romero and Karin Uhlich of the Children, Families and Seniors Subcommittee want the full council to consider a transfer fee on new homes sold inside the city limits.

The subcommittee’s other member, Councilman Rodney Glassman, missed the vote, but even if he had opposed the motion, it would have passed.

Romero and Uhlich want the extra money for the city’s housing trust fund to help poor people buy or repair homes. That’s an admirable goal, but their timing is as bad as their idea.

Like the rest of the nation, Tucson suffers from a terrible slump in homebuilding. The Romero and Uhlich fee would raise prices by one-half percent on a new home the first time it sells and then by 1 percent each time it sells afterward.

That would further depress the Tucson housing market, but it might improve sales in Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita, South Tucson and unincorporated areas of Pima County, where no fee is charged.

This council likes to talk about infill projects but seldom encourages them. The fee would discourage infill, and vacant lots that produce negligible property taxes now would stay vacant.

More new homes would bring more people to Tucson, meaning more state sales and gasoline taxes for the city. We would also see more jobs, city sales and property taxes, and other benefits.

This measure would push those benefits outside the city limits and even into Pinal, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties.

I’m not sure why a subcommittee for children, families and seniors is in the business of proposing higher housing costs. If the mayor and council want to make homes more affordable, they can do plenty of other things instead of inventing new fees.

They should reduce existing taxes and cut impact, permit, connection, inspection, rezoning and plan-review fees.

They also should get serious about cutting the time required for all the approvals required so a home can be built. Even in this construction slump, getting an OK for anything still takes too long at City Hall. The wasted time costs builders money, so they raise home prices.

If the transfer fee raises the selling price of every new home in Tucson, a free market will also increase selling prices of other homes, in or out of the city.

When buyers must include government fees as part of their home mortgages, they wind up paying considerably more in monthly house payments over 15 to 30 years.

And higher selling prices mean the county assessor will set higher full cash values on homes, driving property taxes up, too. You and I will pay them, even if we haven’t bought a new home.

The new fees also would provide an excuse to hire more city employees to monitor, collect and decide how to distribute the money. Total expenses could easily exceed revenues.

That’s why council members should kill this suggestion and then begin cutting existing fees and reducing delays for building projects inside the city.

They should also begin turning the city’s role in low-cost housing over to Habitat for Humanity, Primavera Builders or other agencies that do it better.

The headline on a Sept. 30 Arizona Daily Star editorial about the transfer fee idea proclaimed: "New housing proposal merits more discussion."

No it doesn’t. Kill it now.

If the transfer fees are approved, the next move for council members could be to seek a sales tax on groceries to ensure that Tucson’s hungry are fed.

Naturally, they would have to establish a new city department to compete with the Community Food Bank and other nonprofits.

Contact Steve Emerine or e-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com. Emerine, a Tucson resident since 1960, has run Steve Emerine Strategic Public Relations since 1994. He is a former local newspaper reporter, editor and columnist and served as Pima County Assessor from 1973 to 1980. He is a regular Monday guest on the John C. Scott radio talk show, which airs from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to noon weekdays on The Voice KVOI 690-AM. This column appears weekly in Inside Tucson Business.