A New Metric in Town: A Survey of Local Planners on California’s Switch from LOS to VMT

This paper presents results from a 2018 survey of local planners (n = 77) about an impending transition in California’s environmental review law, which will require planners to evaluate land development projects for their effects on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) rather than automobile level-of-service (LOS). We find that most planners view VMT as an appropriate metric to measure environmental impacts from transportation, both generally and in their own jurisdictions. Outside of environmental review, some jurisdictions will likely continue to use LOS to assess development impact fees. But LOS may not be as ingrained in local planning practice as generally assumed.

What Determines Public Support for Graduated Development Impact Fees?

The development impact fee is one growth management tool that is often adopted to reduce externalities associated with development on the urban fringe. But it is also used as a revenue generator that offsets property taxes. While graduated impact fees are a potential means to reduce sprawling development, it is unclear which public constituencies favor their adoption. Using an adjacent category logit model, there is limited evidence for exclusion based on race or class and, surprisingly, homeownership is not a major determinant of support. The model results indicate differences in policy preferences among longtime Phoenix residents, newcomers, city dwellers, and sub/exurbanites, which may suggest a desire to maintain the status quo and shift the burden of new development to developers and homebuyers. This article contributes to local government literature through an empirical examination of how sociodemographic factors drive public support for graduated development impact fees.

Development Impact Fees: A Vehicle or Restraint for Land Development?

Although development impact fees have been used by local governments for decades, it is still not well understood how this tool serves its fundamental policy goal of growth management. Previous studies have shown that impact fees can serve as either a vehicle or restraint for land development. By using panel data from Florida counties in the U.S., this study shows that the use of impact fees precipitates local development by increasing the value of developable parcels. Impact fees allow developers to pursue more development activities as they bear the imposed fees.

Who Pays, Who Benefits, Who Decides? Urban Infrastructure in Nineteenth-Century Chicago and Twentieth-Century Phoenix

This article compares the financing of urban infrastructure in nineteenth-century Chicago and twentieth-century Phoenix, highlighting distributional conflicts over the cost of public goods. Using the rich secondary literature on Chicago, particularly Robin Einhorn's book, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872, I explore whether adoption of development impact fees in Phoenix in 1987 represented a transition similar to that in Chicago between 1847 and 1851, when a system of special assessments paid by property owners benefiting from an improvement arose, in contrast to citywide financing of public works for citywide benefit. I examine the history of adoption and implementation of development impact fees, which were intended to “make growth pay for itself” by assessing new development to finance infrastructure it would require, and consider whether the fees resembled Chicago's special assessment system in constituting a privatization of government and in reflecting a view that government should not be used to redistribute. I conclude that models that address the provision of urban infrastructure, such as the Tiebout model, would benefit from greater attention to efforts to shift the cost of public goods over space, time, and social groups or classes in growing communities.