Fiscal Impact Analysis

Fiscal impact analysis seeks to connect planning and local economics by estimating the public costs and revenues that result from property investments. This type of analysis enables the comparison of revenues to costs associated with new development indicating whether local government can meet new demands for services, or must raise taxes to meet new service demands. This paper is a comprehensive description and assessment of current methods for estimating fiscal impacts, it discusses the influence of local factors such as property tax structure and type of development orgrowth pattern on fiscal impacts and limitations of methods frequently used. It concludes with a discussion of alternate assessments and new approaches to assessing the fiscal and equity dimensions of growth and development.