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E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE E-WIRE PRESS RELEASE |
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Local Tax Sharing Programs Improve Sustainable Development Prospects |
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WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Apr. 9 -/E-Wire/--
(Washington) A report released this week, Improving Economic Health and Competitiveness through Tax Sharing, assesses the experience of local governments with schemes that share portions of tax revenues in order to get better development results and avoid sprawl. The report also provides solutions for many of the problems identified in ELI's Ten Things Wrong with Sprawl, released in 2007.
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Cities, townships, and other local governments compete for tax base in ways that often lead to wasteful abandonment of existing infrastructure, and to the rapid development of lands on the exurban fringe that later demand more taxpayer-funded services. This cycle of tax-chasing behavior produces undesirable fiscal results and even worse socioeconomic and environmental results. After examining options for Pennsylvania communities and reviewing tax sharing programs in communities across the Northeast, ELI finds that such programs can slow the rate of abandonment and improve regional approaches to development.
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James McElfish, Director of ELI's Sustainable Use of Land Program, notes that tax sharing together with joint planning made possible the redevelopment of the former Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh area. "Treating this massive brownfield site as a redevelopment opportunity that could benefit multiple communities, rather than as an opportunity for windfall taxes," according to McElfish, "meant that it could proceed in a systematic way rather than in disjointed competition among the boroughs where the former steelworks had operated." Other tax sharing approaches, such as those in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, and in Dayton, Ohio, have helped assure that development in a fragmented metropolitan area helped all the communities rather than just a fortunate few.
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The report notes that tax sharing can occur under various forms of state legislation, and that pilot projects can help validate tax sharing as an economic and environmental strategy in states where there is massive fragmentation of local governance and taxing powers over land uses. "Environmentalists and land use experts are not used to thinking of state laws governing local taxes as a driver of land development, much less as an agent of urban abandonment," says McElfish, "but the absence of tax sharing mechanisms in much of the northeast has led to unfortunate development patterns. This has been bad for the environment, as well as for the economy."
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This project was funded by the Heinz Endowments with additional support from the William Penn Foundation. The report may be viewed through the following link: http://www.elistore.org
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The Environmental Law Instituteandreg is a independent, non-profit research and educational organization based in Washington, DC. The Institute serves the environmental profession in business, government, the private bar, public interest organizations, academia, and the press. Contact Info: please contact: Brett Kitchen at 202-939-3833 email: pressrequest@eli.org Website : Environmental Law Institute
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/SOURCE:
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Environmental Law Institute |
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04-09-2008 |
/CONTACT:
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please contact:
Brett Kitchen at 202-939-3833
email: pressrequest@eli.org |
| /WEB SITE: |
http://www.eli.org
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