Topic: Land Value Taxation

Requests for Proposals

Research on Land-Based Financing Approaches for Climate Action

Submission Deadline: March 23, 2023 at 11:59 PM

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy invites proposals for original research that examines opportunities for, and challenges with, implementing land-based financing (LBF) instruments, including land value capture, to promote and fund climate adaptation, mitigation, or resiliency measures, with a focus on equity, urban form, and nature-based solutions. The research should help inform practitioners, policy makers, and decision makers.   

The geographic focus of this RFP is global. Proposals will be reviewed competitively according to the weighted evaluation criteria indicated below. Outputs are expected to result in working papers appropriate for publication. 

Research Themes 

The following issues and themes are of interest to the Lincoln Institute, but the list is not exhaustive, and applicants may submit a proposal that addresses other topics or issues. However, the proposal must consider LBF as a tool for climate action by addressing the following: 

  • The necessary enabling conditions for the use of LBF for climate action, including but not limited to, market conditions, public perception of risk, and the pricing of climate risk in land markets 
  • The legal, regulatory, and institutional considerations for using LBF for climate action, including informal or nontraditional forms 
  • The types of climate action, including infrastructure investments and regulatory action, that have the greatest potential for the application of LBF 
  • Temporal considerations for LBF for climate action (e.g., charges for long-term benefits of climate action or the timeframe for realizing land value increments). 
  • Innovative uses of LBF for climate action 
  • The potential nonrevenue-related benefits of LBF for climate action, such as equity 
  • Unintended outcomes (positive or negative) of the approaches, with an emphasis on equity 

Proposals 

Proposals must be submitted online via the web-based application form and must follow the complete RFP guidelines. Proposals submitted by email or mail will not be accepted. Incomplete proposals, proposals received after the due date, or proposals that do not adhere to the format defined in the guidelines will not be accepted.   

Proposals must be submitted in English. The final work produced pursuant to the RFP (if selected for an award) must be in English. 

Evaluation Criteria 

The Lincoln Institute will evaluate proposals based on the following criteria: 

  • The project’s relevance to the RFP’s theme of land-based finance tools for climate action: 35 percent 
  • Rigor of proposed methodology: 25 percent 
  • Potential impact and usefulness of the research for practitioners: 25 percent 
  • Capacity and expertise of the team and relevant analytical and/or practice-based experience: 15 percent 

Details

Submission Deadline
March 23, 2023 at 11:59 PM

Keywords

Adaptation, Climate Mitigation, Environment, Growth Management, Infrastructure, Land Speculation, Land Use, Land Use Planning, Land Value, Land Value Taxation, Land-Based Tax, Local Government, Municipal Fiscal Health, Planning, Property Taxation, Public Finance, Public Policy, Regulatory Regimes, Resilience, Taxation, Transportation, Urban, Urban Development, Valuation, Value Capture, Value-Based Taxes, Zoning

Fellowships

2023 Lincoln Institute Scholars Program

Submission Deadline: March 31, 2023 at 11:59 PM

This program provides an opportunity for recent PhDs, one to two years post-graduate and specializing in public finance or urban economics, to work with senior academics. 

Lincoln Institute Scholars will be invited to the Institute for a program on May 17–19, 2023, that will include:  

  • presentations by a panel of journal editors on the academic publication process; 
  • a workshop in which senior scholars comment on draft papers written by the Lincoln Institute Scholars; 
  • an opportunity for the Lincoln Institute Scholars to present their research; and 
  • a seminar in which leading scholars in public finance and urban economics present their latest research. 

For information on previous Lincoln Scholars, please visit Lincoln Institute Scholars Program Alumni. 


Details

Submission Deadline
March 31, 2023 at 11:59 PM


Downloads


Keywords

Economics, Property Taxation, Public Finance

Graduate Student Fellowships

2023 C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship Program

Submission Deadline: March 3, 2023 at 6:00 PM

The Lincoln Institute's C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship Program assists PhD students whose research complements the Institute's interest in property valuation and taxation. The program provides an important link between the Institute's educational mission and its research objectives by supporting scholars early in their careers. 

The application deadline is 6:00 p.m. EST on March 3, 2023. 

For information on present and previous fellowship recipients and projects, please visit C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellows, Current and Past


Details

Submission Deadline
March 3, 2023 at 6:00 PM


Downloads

How Land Value Capture Can Pay for Infrastructure, Affordable Housing, and Public Services

By Will Jason, September 14, 2022

 

As cities and towns seek funding for transportation, parks, affordable housing, and other public goods, they often overlook one of their most valuable assets—land. A new Policy Focus Report from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy shows how local governments make land more valuable by building infrastructure and facilitating urban development, and how they can ensure that the community reaps the benefits. 

Land value capture enables communities to recover and reinvest the land value increase that results from actions such as building new train stations or changing regulations to enable more dense development. In Land Value Capture in the United States: Funding Infrastructure and Local Government Services, author Gerald Korngold explains how the major land value capture tools work, and recommends a path forward for leaders who want to implement them. 

The Trustee Professor of Law at New York Law School, Korngold also lays out the legal precedents for different types of land value capture and recommends ways policy makers can minimize legal risks. 

“Land value capture has in various forms been used and legally upheld in the United States for some 150 years,” he writes. “It remains a valid and viable option to finance government activities, provided policy makers leverage available tools appropriately.”  

Korngold provides an in-depth analysis of seven land value capture tools—exactions, impact fees, linkage fees, special assessments, mandatory inclusionary housing, incentive zoning, and transferable development rights. He uses case studies from around the country to explain how land value capture can contribute to public policy goals such as equity and sustainability. 

For example, in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, commercial property owners agreed to tax themselves more than $700 million to fund a 23-mile extension of the Metrorail system to Dulles International Airport, roughly an eighth of the total cost of the project. The first section of the new line opened in 2014, and the rest is scheduled to open later this year. 

In downtown Chicago, the city grants developers permission to construct larger buildings in exchange for voluntary fees, which are calculated based on the size of each project. The city directs 80 percent of the revenue to commercial development in underserved neighborhoods, 10 percent to public improvements near each downtown project, and 10 percent to the restoration of landmarks. 

Such policies are possible because transportation infrastructure and zoning for greater density have both been shown to increase the value of land, either by providing access to jobs and amenities, or increasing the profitability of a development, as Korngold documents in the report.  

“Without land value capture, this increased land value remains exclusively in private hands despite the public actions that created it,” Korngold writes. 

 The report is intended for state and local policy makers, urban planners, economic development officials, civic leaders, lawyers, advocates, and other stakeholders. 

“Gerald Korngold provides an all-too-rare pragmatic overview of land value capture, a topic that stokes great passion from theorists and practitioners alike,” said Ian Carlton, senior economic advisor for ECONorthwest, a consulting firm that specializes in economics, finance, and planning. “He clearly explains many of the value capture options that one could implement in the U.S. context.” 

The report is available for download at no cost: https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/policy-focus-reports/land-value-capture-in-united-states 

 


 

Will Jason is the director of communications at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. 

Image: The Dulles Airport Metrorail extension continues to raise funding from special assessments as the project moves through its second phase. Credit: Tom Saunders, VDOT/Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

 

30 climate journalists convened in April 2022 to discuss the connection between land and climate change.

Land Matters Podcast: Climate Journalists Consider the Land-Climate Connection

Highlights of the Lincoln Institute’s 2022 Journalists Forum
By Anthony Flint, August 25, 2022

 

The Lincoln Institute’s 2022 Journalists Forum brought together 30 reporters and editors on the climate beat for two days of conversation about the role of land in the climate crisis, highlighting the need for new ideas, innovations, and policies to help head off the worst impacts of global warming. 

Land and land policy thread through just about every aspect of the crisis, whether deforestation, land conservation for carbon sequestration, the interplay of land, water, and agriculture, or the fact that usable land is disappearing, raising the important question of where millions of displaced people will go, now and in the future. 

Meanwhile, powerful private market actors are at work, in many cases swooping in and buying land that will be prime and prized as flooding, wildfire, mudslides, and sea-level rise make other locations unlivable—a classic case of real estate speculation. 

“We need to elevate . . .  the understanding of the important role that land plays and will play in our ability to address this existential crisis. And if we get it wrong, we’’re going to leave a planet that’s very, very different for whomever is left to exist on it,” said George W. McCarthy, president of the Lincoln Institute, in this collection of highlights from the forum for the Land Matters podcast. 
 
“And the big question is, are we prepared to? And can we navigate between the really, really powerful claims, private claims over dominion over land in exchange for the collective needs to use land differently to get to better global outcomes?” McCarthy asked. “Everything hangs in the balance.” 
 
The journalists considered the intense competition for land, with the siting of solar and wind facilities, transmission pipelines, and other needs in the transition to net-zero emissions; emerging strategies in agriculture and the management of dwindling water resources; and current practices in land conservation, which make it possible for natural areas to continue to soak up carbon. 
 
They also heard about how land can be used to pay for climate action, through land value capture—the harnessing of a portion of increases in private land values triggered by government investments in infrastructure—and the need for more coherent climate migration policies that take into account the vulnerable populations being forced to move from their homes. 
 
The Journalists Forum also featured some practical tools to help cover the story of the century, led by Jeff Allenby of the Center for Geospatial Solutions and Peter Colohan from the Internet of Water initiative, both new Lincoln Institute programs. Advances in technology have enabled a real-time monitoring of land use changes and water flows, which serves as a critical foundation for planners and policymakers — and journalists for telling the story of this turbulent time. 
 
The convening also included a discussion of the business of climate journalism itself, led by Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School; Andrew McCormick from the collaborative Covering Climate Now, Amrita Gupta from the Earth Journalism Network, and Trish Wilson, who established the first climate team dedicated to coverage of global warming at the Washington Post

You can listen to the show and subscribe to Land Matters on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

 

 


Further Reading

How to Fend Off Land Speculation (Land Lines)

Demands on the Land: To Secure a Livable Future, We Must Steward Land Wisely  (Land Lines

Return on Investment: Research Links Climate Action with Land and Property Value Increases (Land Lines) 

Uprooted: As the Climate Crisis Forces U.S. Residents to Relocate, a New Conversation Emerges (Land Lines

The Colorado River is in crisis, and it’s getting worse every day (The Washington Post) 

How Can We Change Land Use at a Time of Climate Crisis and Competition?(RedAcción)   

Deforestation Remains High, Despite International Pledges (New York Times)

Locals Worry Wind and Solar Will Gobble Up Forests and Farms (Stateline) 

 

Anthony Flint is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, host of the Land Matters podcast, and a contributing editor of Land Lines

Graduate Student Fellowships

2022–2023 Programa de becas para el máster UNED-Instituto Lincoln

Submission Deadline: November 29, 2022 at 11:59 PM

El Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) ofrecen el máster en Políticas de Suelo y Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible, un programa académico en español que tuvo gran demanda en su primera convocatoria. Se trata de un posgrado que reúne de manera única los marcos legales y herramientas que sostienen la planificación urbana, junto con instrumentos fiscales, ambientales y de participación sostenibles, todo desde una perspectiva internacional y comparada.

El máster en Políticas de Suelo y Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible es un programa en formato virtual y se compone de cuatro módulos, los cuales abordan una parte importante de la realidad actual de las ciudades: el derecho administrativo urbano, el financiamiento con base en el suelo, el cambio climático y el desarrollo sostenible, y el conflicto urbano y la participación ciudadana. El programa académico concluye con un trabajo final de máster que permite a los alumnos trabajar de cerca con actividades de desarrollo urbano actuales, como el proyecto Castellana Norte en Madrid.

El programa está dirigido especialmente a estudiantes de posgrado y otros graduados con interés en políticas urbanas desde una perspectiva jurídica, ambiental y de procesos de participación, así como a funcionarios públicos. Los participantes del máster recibirán el entrenamiento intelectual y técnico para liderar la implementación de medidas que permitan la transformación de las ciudades. 

El período de matriculación es del 7 de septiembre de 2022 al 16 de enero de 2023.

El Instituto Lincoln otorgará becas que cubrirán parcialmente el costo del máster de los postulantes seleccionados.

Términos de las becas

  • Los becarios deben haber obtenido un título de licenciatura de una institución académica o de estudios superiores.
  • Los fondos de las becas no tienen valor en efectivo y solo cubrirán el 40% del costo total del programa.
  • Los becarios deben pagar la primera cuota de la matricula que representa el 60% del costo total del máster.
  • Los becarios deben mantener una buena posición académica o perderán el derecho a la beca.

El otorgamiento de la beca dependerá de la admisión formal del postulante al máster UNED-Instituto Lincoln.

Si son seleccionados, los becarios recibirán asistencia virtual para realizar el proceso de admisión de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), el cual requiere una solicitud online y una copia de su expediente académico o registro de calificaciones de licenciatura y/o posgrado.

Aquellos postulantes que no obtengan la beca parcial del Instituto Lincoln podrán optar a las ayudas que ofrece la UNED, una vez que se hayan matriculado en el máster.

Fecha límite para postular: 29 de noviembre de 2022, 23:59 horas de Boston, MA, EE.UU. (UTC-5)

Anuncio de resultados: 16 de diciembre de 2022


Details

Submission Deadline
November 29, 2022 at 11:59 PM

Keywords

Climate Mitigation, Development, Dispute Resolution, Environmental Management, Favela, Henry George, Informal Land Markets, Infrastructure, Land Market Regulation, Land Speculation, Land Use, Land Use Planning, Land Value, Land Value Taxation, Land-Based Tax, Local Government, Mediation, Municipal Fiscal Health, Planning, Property Taxation, Public Finance, Public Policy, Regulatory Regimes, Resilience, Reuse of Urban Land, Urban Development, Urbanism, Value Capture, Zoning

2022 National Conference of State Tax Judges

October 27, 2022 - October 29, 2022

Cambridge, MA United States

Offered in English

The National Conference of State Tax Judges meets annually to review recent state tax decisions, consider methods of dealing with complex tax and valuation disputes, and share experiences in case management. This meeting provides an opportunity for judges to hear and question academic experts in law, valuation, finance, and economics, and to exchange views on current legal issues facing tax courts in different states. This year’s program includes sessions on understanding highest and best use principles; the structure and tax treatment of renewable energy projects; identifying, avoiding, and correcting for bias in appraisals under USPAP; and lessons from conducting remote proceedings.


Details

Date
October 27, 2022 - October 29, 2022
Location
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
113 Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA United States
Language
English

Keywords

Dispute Resolution, Land Law, Legal Issues, Local Government, Public Policy, Taxation, Valuation

Graduate Student Fellowships

2022 C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship Program

Submission Deadline: April 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM

The Lincoln Institute's C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship Program assists PhD students, primarily at U.S. universities, whose research complements the Institute's interests in land and tax policy. The program provides an important link between the Institute's educational mission and its research objectives by supporting scholars early in their careers.

For information on present and previous fellowship recipients and projects, please visit C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellows, Current and Past


Details

Submission Deadline
April 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM


Downloads

Graduate Student Fellowships

2021–2022 Programa de becas para el máster UNED-Instituto Lincoln

Submission Deadline: December 6, 2021 at 11:59 PM

El Instituto Lincoln de Políticas de Suelo y la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) se han unido para desarrollar un nuevo programa de máster con un contenido original. Se trata de uno de los pocos programas de posgrado a nivel mundial que reúne sistemáticamente los marcos legales y herramientas que sostienen la planificación urbana, con instrumentos fiscales, ambientales y de participación.

El máster en Políticas de Suelo y Desarrollo Urbano Sostenible es un programa en formato virtual y se compone de tres módulos, cada uno de los cuales aborda una parte importante de la realidad actual de las ciudades: el derecho administrativo urbano, el financiamiento con base en el suelo, el cambio climático y el desarrollo sostenible, y el conflicto urbano y la participación ciudadana.

El programa está dirigido especialmente a estudiantes de posgrado y otros graduados con interés en políticas urbanas desde una perspectiva jurídica, ambiental y de procesos de participación, pero también a funcionarios públicos. Los participantes del máster recibirán el entrenamiento tanto intelectual como técnico para liderar la implementación de medidas que permitan la transformación de las ciudades.

El Instituto Lincoln destinará fondos para becas que cubrirán la matrícula completa del máster de los estudiantes seleccionados.


Details

Submission Deadline
December 6, 2021 at 11:59 PM


Downloads


Keywords

Climate Mitigation, Development, Dispute Resolution, Environmental Management, Favela, Henry George, Informal Land Markets, Infrastructure, Land Market Regulation, Land Speculation, Land Use, Land Use Planning, Land Value, Land Value Taxation, Land-Based Tax, Local Government, Mediation, Municipal Fiscal Health, Planning, Property Taxation, Public Finance, Public Policy, Regulatory Regimes, Resilience, Urban, Urban Development, Urbanism, Value Capture, Zoning

2021 National Conference of State Tax Judges

October 6, 2021 - October 7, 2021

Free, offered in English

The National Conference of State Tax Judges meets annually to review recent state tax decisions, consider methods of dealing with complex tax and valuation disputes, and share experiences in case management. This meeting provides an opportunity for judges to hear and question academic experts in law, valuation, finance, and economics, and to exchange views on current legal issues facing tax courts in different states. This year’s program will feature sessions on “circuit breakers,” an important tax policy tool, and on issues and controversies involved in hotel valuation cases.  

 

Watch the Recordings


Details

Date
October 6, 2021 - October 7, 2021
Language
English
Registration Fee
Free
Cost
Free

Keywords

Dispute Resolution, Land Law, Legal Issues, Local Government, Public Policy, Taxation, Valuation