A developer’s fiscal impact analysis is not enough to asses the true cost of a mixed-use development to a community, said Belmont Planning Board member Liz Allison during a workshop at the Association of Town Finance Committees Annual Meeting in Franklin on Oct. 18.

Having the town’s finance committee assess the impact is the only way to know the real costs, said Allison, a former member of Belmont’s finance committee. She discussed the importance of a finance committee analysis and laid out an analysis template that finance committee members can follow.

Allison used an example of a fiscal impact analysis completed by the Belmont Finance Committee for a residential unit development. The committee ended up projecting a difference of more than $200,000 in costs compared to the developer’s analysis.

There are many benefits to a community doing its own analysis, Allison said. An analysis done by a developer tends to focus more on new revenue as opposed to new costs, and is often hard to read, Allison said. Developers also usually pull information from communities around the country, not necessarily relevant to the community in which they want to develop.

All of this led to Belmont’s finance committee to take a step back and say: “We have to do better,” Allison said.

Requirements to start the process include a deep understanding of “long-run variable costs” and a solid partnership with the school superintendent, who can provide important data. The committee should have a deep understanding of the town budget, and help from the town assessor and treasurer is also necessary when retrieving local data.

When calculating the long-run variable costs, its best to go to the town manager and department heads, where the costs would materially increase, in order to get the most accurate data. Departments typically affected by mix-used developments include police, fire, school, public works, and the library.

Allison recommends sitting down with the superintendent and looking at costs that are fixed as well as not fixed. Forecasting student enrollment is very important. Allison and her team did this by identifying similar developments in the area, obtaining enrollment information, and by calculating the average number of students per apartment based on number of bedrooms.

Belmont’s model fiscal impact analysis took the Finance Committee approximately 30 to 40 hours to complete and was essentially free, since board members are volunteers.

Besides saving the town money, a more accurate analysis from the finance committee will keep a town’s development in scale and context, and let the developer see the path to a quick resolution to speed up the process, she said.

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