Grantee Research Project Results
2002 Progress Report: Designing Incentives that Strengthen Local Capacity for Land Development with Open Space and Healthy Ecosystems: Environmental Impact Fees
EPA Grant Number: R828629Title: Designing Incentives that Strengthen Local Capacity for Land Development with Open Space and Healthy Ecosystems: Environmental Impact Fees
Investigators: Swallow, Stephen K.
Institution: University of Rhode Island
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: January 1, 2001 through February 1, 2003 (Extended to December 31, 2004)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2002 through February 1, 2003
Project Amount: $103,821
RFA: Market Mechanisms and Incentives for Environmental Management (2000) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice
Objective:
The purpose of this research project is to develop a theoretical framework for using impact fees to cause land markets to recognize the value of open space and undeveloped lands. These open spaces are valued because they enhance the quality of life for communities near the fringe of urbanization. Objectives of this research project include: (1) evaluating the impact-fee concept as an incentive for land developers to compensate for losses of open space, rural amenities, and associated ecosystems; (2) evaluating obstacles to and advantages of an impact-fee incentive system in relation to alternative market or incentive-based approaches for local management of land use; and (3) evaluating the role of financing of open-space conservation in affecting municipal incentives for conservation and the performance of impact fees.
Progress Summary:
Our research primarily is focused on further developing the use of stated-preference data as a foundation for environmental-impact fees, whereby developers might compensate communities for the loss of open space through development. A working paper based on data from Richmond, RI, now is approximately 90 percent complete. The paper more fully addresses concerns about the constitutionality of impact fees, with respect to establishing impact fees in a manner that meets judicial tests for linkages between the impact and the magnitude of fees and the use of funds (in legal terms: essential nexus, rough proportionality, and equal treatment of similarly situated lands). These tests likely require that impact fees collected for lost open-space values be clearly expended on land-conservation activities.
Research also was initiated to develop additional numerical examples of impact-fee calculations based on stated-preference data. The additional examples use newly available data that relate directly to the acreage of land conservation (or development) that may occur. This aspect of the new data addresses a key limitation in the preliminary working paper. However, because the data also deal with geographic linkages between different components of municipalities' conservation lands, the data may allow impact-fee calculations to be illustrated under conditions requiring a spatio-dynamic approach. In this approach, impact fees for development may be related directly to land use on neighboring properties; land bordering existing conservation areas may require a different impact fee than otherwise similar land that is disjoined from existing conservation areas. Toward the end of the reporting period, our research developed these issues as part of a new working paper.
Theoretical foundations for impact fees and the incorporation of public access to land conservation also have been initiated. Toward the end of the reporting period, this theoretical framework was outlined using basic graphical models of economics. The fundamental idea was that if a municipality establishes a policy goal of maintaining a certain rural quality of life, that quality of life may have at least two main dimensions: (1) the acreage of undeveloped land maintained; and (2) the degree of public access to the undeveloped landscape. By using impact fees obtained after development of some lands, a municipality may be able to develop a higher level of public access to other lands in a manner that is consistent with maintaining the municipality's quality of life.
Findings imply that the provision of public access to land may be viewed by the public as a valuable substitute for additional land conservation (or for losses of acres to developed uses). This finding may facilitate the practical development of impact fees associated with lost open-space values and link these impact fees to the provision of sites for passive recreation (e.g., public access for hiking in an undeveloped landscape).
Preliminary results were presented at the "Environmental Research Seminar" of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the New England Regional Office on November 14, 2002. This presentation is being reformatted for posting on the EPA Web Site.
Publications/Presentations:
Swallow SK, Philo LD. Considerations in funding land conservation and establishing environmental impact fees for conservation with development. Presented to the Environmental Research Seminar, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New England Regional Science Council and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Office of Research and Development/National Center for Environmental Research, Boston, MA, November 14, 2002.
Future Activities:
Future efforts involve the completion of two working papers establishing the basic linkages between stated-preference data and calculation of practical-impact fees. These papers may include theoretical foundations for linking impact fees to the maintenance of a community's quality of life. Other activities involving the development of methods to calculate spatio-dynamic impact fees that allow a community to adapt its fee structure to an expanding land-conservation portfolio also will be investigated.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 4 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
community-based, sustainable development, Northeast, Rhode Island, RI, willingness to pay, open space., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Ecosystem Protection, Economics, Urban and Regional Planning, Ecosystem/Assessment/Indicators, Market mechanisms, Ecology and Ecosystems, environmental quality, community based, financial mechanisms, ecosystem health, municipal incentives, urbanization, healthy ecosystems, incentives, environmental impact fees, mathematical model, environmental economics, land management practices, sustainable development, ecological exposure, land use, land development, land management, decision making, conservation, land use plannersProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.