I believe Barbara Lukermann of the U. of Minnesota did a study in the mid-90s supporting this snip from Tom Leighton:
<The cost of infrastructure services, such as roads, water and <sewers, on the other hand are sensitive to spatial patterns. (I would add <the cost of transit service to this list.) But this relationship is in the <opposite direction to the conjecture referred to above. It costs less to <provide these services to housing units that are part of medium and high <density development patterns. This implies that taxes from medium and high <density residential property are actually subsidizing the delivery of <infrastructure services to low density housing units. Lukermann concluded that existing dense development within the inner ring was subsidizing capital improvements to the outer/developing areas. I know there was a lot of talk about it, including some serious criticism from the development community, and I don't believe it ever served as a basis for much policy change, but I haven't heard either that the data wasn't valid or that it's not still the same way today. Anyone else remember this study, or have any perspective on it? Assuming the study is still valid, it would seem to support taxing residential property at a rate inversely proportional to density (Though it pains me to say it as a single-family-homeowner). You could certainly argue that the social benefits of homeownership outweigh the higher service costs, in which case it seems high-density owners, i.e. downtown condos, ought to pay the lowest taxes of all. (This is too narrow a perspective, of course, since any discussion of high vs. low density and capital costs must consider regional growth issues. But for the purposes of City tax policy, maybe high-density dwellers ought to be paying less than the rest). Neal Blanchett Lynnhurst _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
