Fiscal Impact Studies as Advocacy and Story Telling

Abstract

Citizens and local officials have become increasingly inclined to acceptfiscal arguments as the basisfor land use decisions, and planners have increasingly usedfiscal impact studies as an argument for growth management. However, as an increasing number of studies have found that most forms of development arefiscally unbeneficial, it is no longer clear that the answers fiscal studies are producing are leading to constructive conclusions. Planners, environmentalists, and proponents of the "taxpayers revolt" have concluded from recent fiscal impact studies that growth is undesirable. This probably says more about the "taxpayers' revolt," the changing structure of publicfinance, and changing attitudes toward development and the environment than it does about the desirability or undesirability of development. Fiscal impact research can and should be more informative and should increase public understanding of the consequences of alternative land use policies and fiscal approaches to paying for infrastructure and facilities related to new development. Toward that end, this article proposes a number of specific ways to makefiscal impact research educationally useful and informative.