The knowledge needed to plan for financial stability is
available but located in separate public silos. The cooperation needed to
correlate this information has not been attempted -- to my knowledge. A farmer
can tell you that separating income evaluation from crop allocation and yield assessment
is financial roulette, but cities have not understood that they are farms with
crops of shelter capacity and activity called zones and intensity that must be
adequately allocated to anticipate the combined revenue needed to ensure their
financial stability and desired quality of life over time.
On second thought, cities may understand the challenge but
have not comprehensively addressed the financial problem with data science, geographic
information systems, shelter capacity evaluation, revenue correlation, and urban
design of land use allocation.
Land use plans for compatible adjacent activity have not
adequately anticipated the three-dimensional shelter capacity, intensity, and activity
compositions required to produce a financially stable habitat, social “quality
of life”, and desirable physical context for growing populations within a limited
Built Domain. This is the potential of urban design. Without it, we will continue
to sprawl, consuming land for new revenue to meet increasing growth and expense
with consumption until we meet the planet’s Law of Limits.
BACKGROUND
In my experience a county has been the repository for all
public revenue collection within its boundaries, and has recorded this
information by parcel number and street address. In some cases, cities may have
assisted. The county has not been interested in correlating its information
with a constituent city’s street addresses, zoning districts, census blocks,
and census tract designations since the information is not related to their
mission and involves time-consuming compilation that can randomly change. This
deprives cities of essential information because a city is a farm “… and a
farmer can tell you that separating income planning from crop allocation and
yield assessment…” is management without a strategy that can easily produce
decline. (I’ve purposely repeated the text italicized.)
County real estate tax information is publicly accessible
but personal income tax information is classified. A city, however, cannot
accurately manage the revenue from its land use activity, shelter capacity, and
physical intensity allocation decisions without more complete county
information regarding the characteristics and economic performance of every
acre within its boundaries, because this is the foundation for its financial
stability. The challenge is to make relevant county revenue information
available to local jurisdictions for evaluation and land use/design allocation while
protecting the public expectation for privacy, integrity, and accuracy.
The separation of land use activity from measurement of
its physical intensity and economic productivity per acre is an error that farm
economics should make obvious.
It is possible for a city to create a database of zoning
district, census block, and census tract designations related to every street
address; to link this database with county revenue information; and to write
database queries that correlate tax information with its related census block,
tract, or zone locations while also protecting county source information. Comparison
of economic productivity per acre to a city’s average annual expense per acre
can indicate where attention is needed to improve a city’s average economic
performance. The ratio of area productivity deficits to surpluses discovered will
be an indication of prior planning decision success and the future land use
capacity, activity, intensity, and context decisions needed to improve a city’s
average economic productivity per acre. There will always be subsidies, but
their presence will remain hidden at increasing risk to the future as they
increase with age.
SUGGESTION
The objective is to protect county revenue information from
disclosure when required, but to make it available to cities who cannot make
informed decisions without it. These cities must gain a better understanding of
the relationship between the acres in their jurisdiction and the revenue
produced by the occupant activity and intensity they permit.
County real estate tax information is available to the
public. A read-only version could be linked to a city’s street address and
zoning database for local planning purposes if the local database exists.
Income tax information is more problematic. Some cities track county income tax
receipts in a secure location to ensure accurate county accounting. This
private information could be related to a city’s street address database and
compiled by zone, census block, or census tract at this secure local location to
protect individual privacy. The protected income tax information could be
queried by zone, census block, census tract, or other geographic area and
combined with property tax revenue for the same area. This would enable
planning/urban design evaluation of the relationship between city land, its shelter
capacity, physical intensity, occupant activity, and average revenue per acre
available to support its operations, maintenance, improvements, and debt
service expense.
Relational databases, data science, geographic
information systems, shelter capacity evaluation, and urban design are some of
the tools a city needs to understand and plan for a sustainable economic
relationship between its land, the revenue it provides, and the context it
creates to serve the quality of life desired.
Measuring the past produces knowledge. Accurately predicting
future shelter capacity, intensity, activity, and revenue options represents an
opportunity to build on knowledge and produce desirable, economically stable urban
design compositions within limited areas. The building design categories and
design specification options located in the collection of forecast models
entitled, “Shelter Capacity Evaluation”, have been derived with this objective
in mind. It is not enough to understand a problem without the tools needed to
examine options and define solutions. I have discussed them on many previous
occasions and simply reference them here.
Economic development projects are tactical solutions. The
battles will be endless until a goal can be recognized, and a strategy defined
with a language capable of leading the efforts of many. The following is a list
of information needed to begin understanding the performance of land within a
city’s boundaries in my opinion. As I’ve just mentioned, however, understanding
is only the beginning. In this case it means that a parasite must learn to
adapt on a planet that has not been designed for unlimited growth and
consumption. An adequate leadership language is needed to begin.
MUST KNOW
1) Total
annual revenue received by a city from all sources
2) Total
taxable acres in city
3) Total
gross building area in sq. ft. per city zone
4) Taxable
buildable acres per city zone
5) Total
revenue per city zone
6) Number
of separate city zones
NOTE: a zone is a collection
of planned, compatible activities within a defined zoning district that is one
area in a city master plan.
APPLICATION
1) Gross
building area per zone (GBAz) divided by the number of taxable buildable acres
per zone (BACz) equals taxable gross building area sq. ft. per zoning acre, or
shelter capacity per zone (SFACz).
2) Revenue
per zone (REVz) divided by the total taxable shelter sq. ft. in the zone
(SFACz) equals the revenue per taxable shelter sq. ft. per zone from the zoning
activity, shelter capacity and intensity present (RVSFz).
3) Revenue
per zone (REVz) divided by the taxable buildable acres in the zone (BACz)
equals the revenue produced per zoning acre by the taxable of activity,
capacity, and intensity in the zone (RVACz).
4) Total
revenue per taxable acre per zone (RVACz) divided by number of zones (Zn) equals
average city rev per taxable acre (CRAC).
5) Total
annual city expense (CXP) divided by total taxable city acres (CAC) equals the average
city expense per taxable buildable acre (CXAC).
6) Avg city
rev per taxable acre (CRAC) must equal total city expense per taxable acre
(CXP). When it doesn’t, budget cuts are required to correct the imbalance and
decline becomes an increasing matter of opinion.
The revenue per taxable, buildable acre in a zone (RVACz)
may be greater than or less than a city’s total expense per taxable buildable
acre (CXAC). “A comparison … can… indicate where attention is needed to
improve a city’s average economic performance. The ratio of zoning area
productivity deficits to surpluses will be an indication of prior planning
success and the future land use capacity, activity, intensity, and context
decisions needed to improve a city’s average economic productivity.” (I’ve
purposely repeated the text italicized.) The language of shelter capacity
evaluation has been created to assist in the consideration of a city’s land use
potential. It can also be used to express a city’s leadership decisions in
correlated values that can be followed by design to reach a strategic goal.
FINAL NOTE
A city that grants tax abatements without a comprehensive
understanding of the revenue “yield” produced by the shelter capacity, intensity,
intrusion, and context present or planned on each buildable, taxable acre of
land within its boundaries is operating on assumption, hope, and history that
has never been a solid foundation for the anticipation, planning, and design
needed. Continued annexation of land, agriculture, and the natural domain have
been, and are, expedient Ponzi solutions motivated by the lack of knowledge and
excessive assumption involved.
Walter M. Hosack: November 2024
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