FINANCE FOR FIELD FINANCE FORTHE THE FIELD Positioning Parkland Dedication Ordinances as a Central Element in Fiscally Conservative Fast-Growth Cities By John L. Crompton, Ph.D.
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ince the advent of the “tax revolt” in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the dominant political philosophy in many U.S. communities has been “fiscal conservatism.” Operationally, it generally means elected officials will not support increases in taxation. Hence, a bedrock principle of fiscal conservatism should be the Benefit Principle, which states that those who benefit from government services should pay for them. If the Benefit Principle is not followed, then the alternatives are to raise taxes or lower the level of service, which results in a lower quality of life. The reluctance of elected officials to raise taxes means that the most likely outcome is to lower the standard of service. This result was documented in a study that a colleague and I recently published in the Journal of Park and Recreation Administration. It showed that over
a 12-year period, the level of park provision in 54 fast-growth cities in Texas declined with growth, and the greater the growth the larger the decline in level of park provision. Parkland dedication (which includes fees-in-lieu and park development fees) is a manifestation of the Benefit Principle. It can be conceptualized as a type of user fee because the intent is to pass the cost of accommodating increased
In fast-growth cities, parkland dedication provides local government-elected officials with at least a partial solution to their capital funding problems.
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Parks & Recreation
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demand for parks through to the landowners, developers and/or new homeowners who are responsible for creating the demand. It does not have a role in cities experiencing slow growth or declines in population, but in fast-growth cities it provides local government-elected officials with at least a partial solution to their capital funding problems.
Rationale for Implementing Parkland Dedication Growing awareness of the costs of growth; reduced availability of external funds from federal and state governments; caps that state governments have imposed on local jurisdictions’ spending; the growing strength of fiscal conservatism as a political imperative; an increase in costs caused by an increase in expectations of communities for higher quality standards in parks than was accepted in the 1970s (for example, ballfields marked on grass areas often are no longer acceptable, they now are groomed and manicured); and elected officials’ reluctance to support tax increases needed to retain the existing level of service for parks provision have resulted in recognition that in many contexts, parkland dedication represents the most palatable political option for funding new parks. In my September 2020 column (tinyurl.com/pkjn42pu), I reviewed the results from 151 studies, which showed that in contrast to
