Table Of ContentPROPORTIONATE SHARE IMPACT FEES
AND DEVELOPMENT MITIGATION
After decades of evolving practice often tested in court, development impact fees have become
institutionalized in the American planning and local government finance systems. But, they
remain contentious, especially as they continue to evolve. This book is the third in a series of
impact fee guidebooks for practitioners, following A Practitioner’s Guide to Development Impact Fees
and Impact Fees: Proportionate Share Development Fees.
Proportionate Share Impact Fees and Development Mitigation is the culmination of the authors’
careers devoted to pioneering applications of the dual rational nexus test. That test requires (1)
establishing the rational nexus between the need for infrastructure, broadly defined, to mitigate
the impacts of development and (2) ensuring that development mitigating its infrastructure
impacts benefits proportionately. The book elevates professional practice in two ways. First, it
shows how the rational nexus test can be applied to all forms of development infrastructure
impact mitigation. Second, it establishes the link between professional ethics and equity as
applied to proportionate share impact fees and development mitigation.
The book is divided into four parts, with the first reviewing policy and legal foundations,
the second detailing the planning, calculation, and implementation requirements, the third
exploring economic, ethical, and equity implications, and the fourth presenting state-of-the-art
case studies.
Proportionate Share Impact Fees and Development Mitigation sets new standards for professional
practice.
Arthur C. Nelson, PhD, FAcSS, FAICP, is emeritus Professor of Urban Planning and Real Estate
Development at the University of Arizona, as well as emeritus Presidential Professor of City
and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah, where he was also Adjunct Professor of
Finance. He has authored more than 20 books and more than 300 other publications. Recent
books include Foundations of Real Estate Development Financing, Reshaping Metropolitan America;
The TDR Handbook (with Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer and James C. Nicholas and others), and
the critically acclaimed Megapolitan America (with Robert E. Lang). Nelson’s expert testimony
helped frame urban sprawl as a legal concept in Florida, guide the Georgia Supreme Court
to establish affordable housing case law, and support the rationale used by the US Supreme
Court when it established the “rough proportionality” exaction doctrine in Dolan v. City of
Tigard, 512 U.S. 374.
James C. Nicholas, PhD, is emeritus Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and emeritus
affiliate Professor of Law at the University of Florida. He has written widely on the subject of
land, environmental policy, and growth management. Nicholas has authored eight books, three
monographs, and over 60 articles in the professional literature, dealing primarily with growth
and local governmental finance of infrastructure. He is author of The Calculation of Proportionate-
Share Impact Fees, the American Planning Association’s first impact fee guide. Nicholas is also
co-author of A Guide to Impact fees and Housing Affordability (with Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer
and Arthur C. Nelson), editor of The Changing Structure of Infrastructure Finance, and author of
State Regulation and Housing Prices. Together with Juergensmeyer, he pioneered the Rational
Nexus Test, which has become the guiding principle for development mitigation such as impact
fees in the United States.
Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, a BA and JD graduate of Duke University and a member of
the Ohio Bar, is emeritus Professor and emeritus Ben F. Johnson, Jr. Chair in Law at Georgia
State University, where he served as Co-Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of
Metropolitan Growth and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy. He
was also Adjunct Professor in City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology
and is emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Florida. Juergensmeyer is the co-author
of the widely cited Land Use Planning and Development Regulation Law; Impact Fees: Principles and
Practice of Proportionate Share Development Fees (with Nelson and Nicholas); and over 100 other
books and articles. He has consulted with local governments and attorneys on matters relating
to impact fees and other infrastructure finance policies as well as development mitigation in
29 states.
Clancy Mullen, AICP, is president of Duncan Associates. Having prepared more than 300 impact
fee studies, he is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on professional impact fee practice. Prior
to joining Duncan Associates, Mullen served as a zoning planner for Austin. He is a contributing
author to two American Planning Association publications, Principles and Practice of Proportionate-
Share Development Fees and Growth Management Principles and Practice. He is also a co-founder of
the National Impact Fee Roundtable (now the Growth and Infrastructure Consortium).
PROPORTIONATE
SHARE IMPACT FEES
AND DEVELOPMENT
MITIGATION
Arthur C. Nelson, James C. Nicholas,
Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, and
Clancy Mullen
Cover image: “A bouquet of new development.” Drawing by Susan Leeb, Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, based on a conceptualization by Raymond J. Burby, FAICP. © 1988 by the American
Planning Association.
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Arthur C. Nelson, James C. Nicholas, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, and Clancy
Mullen
The right of Arthur C. Nelson, James C. Nicholas, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, and
Clancy Mullen to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nelson, Arthur C., editor.
Title: Proportionate share impact fees and development mitigation / [edited by] Arthur C.
Nelson, James C. Nicholas, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, and Clancy Mullen.
Description: New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022023925 (print) | LCCN 2022023926 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032372563
(hardback) | ISBN 9781032372587 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003336075 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Impact fees–United States. | Real estate development–United States.
Classification: LCC HJ4182.A6 .P76 2023 (print) | LCC HJ4182.A6 (ebook) |
DDC 336.22–dc23/eng/20220603
LC record available at https://lccn .loc .gov /2022023925
LC ebook record available at https://lccn .loc .gov /2022023926
ISBN: 9781032372563 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032372587 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003336075 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003336075
Typeset in New Baskerville
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To those we have served over our careers and from whom we have learned so much.
CONTENTS
page
Illustrations x
Acronyms xvii
Foreword xviii
Preface xxv
Prologue: Proportionate Share Impact Mitigation xxvi
PART 1
Policy Rationale and Legal Foundations 1
1 The Past, Present, and Future of Impact Fees 3
2 Legal Foundations 17
3 State Impact Fee Legislation 43
4 A Tale of Two States: Texas and Georgia Impact Fee Legislation Compared 56
5 National Impact Fee Survey 64
PART 2
Foundations of Planning, Calculation, and Implementation 75
6 In Accordance with the Plan 77
7 Impact Fee Methodology 117
8 Model Proportionate Share Impact Fee Ordinance 144
9 A Word About Independent Studies, Exemptions, and Waivers 173
PART 3
Efficiency, Ethical, and Equity Concerns with Policy Options and International
Perspectives 179
10 Evaluation of Impact Fees Against Public Finance Criteria 181
Douglass B. Lee
11 Impacts of Proportionate-Share Development Fees 199
Gregory Burge and Trey Dronyk-Trosper
viii C ONTENTS
12 Toward a Supply-Side Theory of Development Impact Mitigation 220
13 Good Planning, Value-Added Planning, and Value Capture 230
14 Ethical Issues in the Use of Impact Fees to Finance Community Growth 244
Timothy Beatley
15 The Ethics of Impact Fee Equity 264
Mary Kay Peck Delk, Arthur C. Nelson, and Susan A. Wood
Coda to Chapter 15: A Standard of Professional Practice for Proportionate Share
Impact Fees and Development Mitigation 277
Arthur C. Nelson, Mary Kay Peck Delk, Julian Conrad Juergensmeyer, Clancy Mullen,
James C. Nicholas, and Susan A. Wood
16 The Option of Impact Fees 299
17 Impact Fees in an International Context: Comparisons and Similar Fiscal Tools 315
David Amborski
PART 4
Innovations in Practice 327
18 A Framework for Estimating Multimodal Transportation
Impacts for Sustainable Development 331
Kristina M. Currans and Kelly J. Clifton
19 Mobility Fees 343
Jonathan Paul
20 Operations and Maintenance Mitigation Fees and Transportation Utility Fees with
Implications for Improving Impact Mitigation 376
21 Parking In-Lieu Fee Incentivizes Development in Downtown Oxnard, California 384
Alison Bouley
22 A Rational Nexus Approach Supporting Development Mitigation to Increase
Workforce Housing Supply 390
23 Innovations in Impact Fee Adjustments to Advance Housing Affordability 408
24 Western Placer County, California: Habitat Conservation Fee 412
Robert Spencer
25 Flexible Development Funding for Large-Scale Development 433
Alison Bouley
CONTENTS ix
26 Residential and Nonresidential School Impact Fee Nexus: Case Study of Fremont
Union High School District, California 438
J. Richard Recht
27 Parks and Recreation Impact Fees for Residential and Nonresidential Development:
Case Study of Tucson, Arizona 454
Carson Bise
28 Water Impact Fees for Residential Development Based on House Size: Case Study of
Bozeman, Montana 468
Carson Bise
29 Transportation Impact Fees Scaled to Residential Unit Size in Tucson, Arizona 486
Carson Bise
30 Impact Fee Focus Groups: Case Study of Town of Queen Creek, Arizona 497
Kevin Burnett
Epilogue: Commentaries and Reflections on the Promise of Proportionate Share
Impact Fees and Development Mitigation 503
Commentaries by Jim Nicholas, Clancy Mullen, Julian Juergensmeyer, and Chris Nelson
Index 512
