At Lincoln House
The monthly e-newsletter of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
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The Lincoln Institute earlier this month established the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy, the centerpiece of a new initiative to integrate land use planning and the management of an increasingly scarce resource.
The Center, based in Phoenix, is named for Bruce Babbitt, former Arizona governor, Interior secretary, and longtime board member of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Jim Holway, who has years of experience in water and land use issues in Arizona and throughout the Intermountain West, will serve as the first director.
“It’s been said that water is the new oil, and if we want to ensure that future generations have adequate supplies, we have to understand the intimate connection between land and water,” said George W. “Mac” McCarthy, president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute. “It’s a two-way street: how we plan and use land has an impact on water, and water availability has an increasing impact on how we can use land. We seek to bridge these two worlds to better meet the needs of people, agriculture, and nature.”
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50-state property tax report released
For the 12th year in a row, New York City has a larger discrepancy in property tax rates for rentals compared to owner-occupied units than any other U.S. city, according to the annual 50-State Property Tax Comparison Study by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence.
Because of policies designed to ease tax burdens on homeowners, the effective tax rate on a typical owner-occupied home is just one-fifth of the rate paid by the owner of an apartment building – costs that are in many cases passed along to renters.
The discrepancies in the New York City system emerge in a comprehensive analysis of the effective property tax rate – the tax payment as a percentage of market value – for residential, commercial, industrial, and apartment properties in more than 100 U.S. cities.
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The Lincoln Institute led the conversation about local government finance at the American Planning Association’s annual conference in New York City, a gathering of more than 6,000 planners, elected officials and others. With 15 sessions covering topics ranging from fiscal analysis of land-use to scenario planning to value capture, we engaged with hundreds of people over four days.
Property tax incentives were an especially hot topic, as communities seek to promote economic development while protecting the tax base and maintaining fairness. Ron Rakow, commissioner of assessing in Boston, described his city’s approach to preventing waste, ensuring accountability and transparency, and producing. the maximum benefit for each public dollar invested. Greg LeRoy, president of the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First, said Boston is the exception, and many communities continue to provide incentives haphazardly, to the detriment of taxpayers.
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With a national infrastructure plan promised in the next several weeks, we lay out the case for long term thinking to avoid the mistakes of the past, and for confronting climate change … The Fiscally Standardized Cities database is getting attention, with a working paper by Bruce McDonald and a citation in this provocative piece on federal funding and cities by former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist … We helped launch an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report on land use governance at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston … How fair lending affects fiscal health … Alissa Walker on Richard Florida ... Scholars gathered in London to explore China’s urban development … City books for non-planning nerds ... Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, to which we contributed, is in theatrical release … This month’s highlighted Working Paper:Land Values, Property Rights, and Home Ownership: Implications for Property Taxation in Peru, by Zackary Hawley, Juan José Miranda, and W. Charles Sawyer. |
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