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heavyiron382 t1_jd7olds wrote

Reply to comment by hatred_outlives in They’ve Been Warned: Attorney General Says Suburbs ‘Must Comply’ With Transit-Oriented Housing Law by psychothumbs

Clearly a statement of someone that doesn't have a clue how the real world works. Developers will and do build in communities where water and sewer isn't available. The state forces the towns to allow them in. Then the town is forced to come up with money and resources to support this new building. Sewage and water are least of the concerns. It's the schooling and added municipal employees aka fire, police dpw that are the hardest and most expensive added costs that all of the city dwellers don't understand and could care less about.

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_jd7u500 wrote

you know taxes are a thing. New residents bring in new income

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alexandercecil t1_jd8wwhp wrote

You might be interested to know that is generally not the case. I mean they do bring in more revenue, but working-age residents generally cost a municipality more than those residents bring in with taxes. Increasing residential population without growth in commercial and/or industrial sectors ruins a town's budget and ability to meet the needs of its residents.

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_jd90azu wrote

That assertion is unsupported by research: https://www.wbur.org/news/2016/03/15/massachusetts-housing-costs-local-resistance

The total tax revenue generated by new housing more than offsets the marginal cost of providing services in almost every case

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alexandercecil t1_jd94oph wrote

This is interesting. Thank you for sharing! I skimmed the WBUR article but have not had the time to drive into the study it cites. I plan to do that. If the study matched the conditions in my town, and if our own budget can verify this is true with some drilling, then it changes some aspects of the equation for development in general.

Thanks again!

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_jd999va wrote

it still might not help in the near term because the article / report does say that while overall revenue almost always positive, towns might still experience negative net revenue without state transfers because of how revenue is divided between states and towns

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Doctrina_Stabilitas t1_jdesuyt wrote

I’ll add Somerville did a study when prepping for assembly square that’s briefly referenced in the neighborhood plan for assembly and it found that increased density offsets the cost of new housing, if you’re on a town planning thing maybe you could reach out to the city government for the full methodology and results of that study

http://www.somervillebydesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ASN_Plan-Update_Final.pdf

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three-ple t1_jd9isvm wrote

I've seen no mention of this, so I'll bring it up. Many communities will qualify for various sources of funding to increase/improve the size of their wastewater treatment facilities. The narrative that "this cost is bore by the community alone" is not entirely accurate.

https://www.epa.gov/small-and-rural-wastewater-systems/funding-sources-small-and-rural-wastewater-systems#general

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heavyiron382 t1_jd9jfw7 wrote

That's helpful for communities that have treatment plants but most rural communities don't have treatment plants and would have to add one. I'm not sure even with state aid most of those towns could justify building a treatment plant.

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