Impact Fees Promote Growth

"Growth costs money. And increasingly many municipalities, confronted with tax-averse electorates, have turned to impact fees--one-time charges against new development--to pay the costs of growth. Traditionally, these costs have been financed by property taxes. However, those revenues have proven mostly inadequate to fund the roads, water and sewer infrastructure, and schools required by new residential and commercial development... This report addresses the controversy around impact fees by reviewing the academic literature concerning the effect of impact fees on employment and the economy generally. In addition, the report presents a new analysis of the relationship between impact fees and job creation by assessing impact fee and economic data, assembled for the period 1993 to 1999, for the 67 counties of Florida."