For Immediate Release
January 19, 2005

Keeping Healthy: WebFIT Helps Local Governments Evaluate the Fiscal Impact of Land-Use Planning

These days, it seems as though everyone is interested in keeping healthy, especially local governments. So, when officials in the city of Alpharetta (Ga), needed answers on how changes in zoning would affect their financial health, they contacted Georgia Tech's Economic Development Institute (EDI) to check out WebFIT™.

Georgia Tech's Economic Development Institute used its WebFIT tool to help the city of Alpharetta assess the fiscal impact of proposed land-use changes. Shown examining a map of the city are (left to right) Robert Lann, manager of research services at EDI, Alpharetta Mayor Arthur Letchas and Diana Wheeler, director of Community Development for the city. Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek  Dowload 300 dpi image

The software planning tool is Georgia Tech's new, Web-based program that local officials can use when evaluating the fiscal impact of land use plans and near-term development projects.

Leaders in Alpharetta, 25 miles north of Atlanta, had been getting a lot of requests from developers to build high-density residential projects rather than office complexes. Before approving these requests, officials wanted to know how these changes would affect their bottom line.

Diana Wheeler is the community development director for the city of Alpharetta. "We were and still are getting a lot of requests to rezone property from office to high-density residential usage," Wheeler explained. "We were trying to find out how much high-density residential property this community could support without raising taxes."

Alpharetta needed that one question answered and turned to Georgia Tech for help.

"We have an economic development division so we are familiar with EDI," she said. "We had heard about WebFIT and we knew it was originally designed for use by counties rather than single cities. We contacted EDI to see if they could develop something that we could use to evaluate the effect the rezoning requests would have on our finances."

Robert Lann, manager of EDI's research services, says the organization originally had rapidly growing counties in mind when developing the software planning tool. "This program can estimate the fiscal impact of a long-run land use plan on the county, its municipalities, and the county school system," Lann said.

Fast-growing, suburban Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, was the first client to use the Web-based tool. Earlier projects in Paulding and Fayette counties helped develop the model's structure but neither project was as involved as the Gwinnett project and both preceded development of the web-based version.

"WebFIT looks at the whole county and allows us to put together the fiscal impact for each city in the county as well as the county government," said Lann. "By using the program, a community is able to project how its land use plan will affect future revenues and expenditures."

Once the results from the Gwinnett County study were announced, Lann received a call from officials in Alpharetta.

"Alpharetta had been getting a lot of requests from developers to build high-density residential projects rather than office complexes," he said. "City leaders asked us to help them develop a model that would show them what would happen if they did this. In this case the client was only interested in the impact in their community rather than countywide.

"We actually adapted the WebFIT tool from the original county model format," Lann explained. "What we developed for them was a tool that they could use to answer this specific question regarding the impact rezoning would have on their community."

EDI's approach is based on statistical analysis by researcher Bill Riall using data from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and property tax digest data from the Georgia Department of Revenue. The approach relies on analysis of how changes in population and residential, commercial and industrial property values affect government revenues and expenditures.

For instance, research into the cost of serving residential and non-residential properties has consistently shown that, on average, households don't generate enough revenue to pay for the services they require. For commercial and industrial properties, the situation is usually reversed.

For Alpharetta, EDI embodied these equations into a spreadsheet-version of the planning program.

Lann worked with Alpharetta officials for about six months as they input data and made changes to WebFIT. Once the adaptation was complete, city leaders could see the impact rezoning had on their revenues and expenditures. Through the program's spreadsheet, Alpharetta was able to quantify the costs to the community and the impact that approving rezoning requests would have.

"I think the best thing is that it is a new tool that helps us do our job better," Wheeler said. "We were hoping to quantify an issue that we had and that's what happened.

"Our leaders were very happy. It's a growth management tool and we needed that. When people come and ask us about changing use on property we want to give them an answer based on something factual," she said. "Thanks to Georgia Tech, now we can do that. It was great experience because we had one basic question for which we needed an answer and the study that was done for us answered that question."

Lann said working with Wheeler and other officials in Alpharetta was productive and helped EDI serve another group of local governments. "We spent quite a bit of time making changes to WebFIT ," he said. "We could not have been successful with the adaptation without the support and cooperation of the people in Alpharetta.

"I owe them a big thanks because their request for help allowed us to expand the usefulness of the planning tool," he said. "Now, instead of the original county level client base for which the product was designed, Alpharetta's request has opened the tool up to single municipalities, too."

Wheeler agreed that the impact of the Alpharetta study has been very successful and word has already begun to spread. "Apparently we have hit a chord with other cities that have a similar issue," she said. "People are finding out that this is applicable in their communities as well."

Using Alpharetta as an example, Lann sees a much wider usage for WebFIT. "Anyone with a lot of rezoning requests from developers would benefit from this tool," said Lann. "Although it was designed for use in Georgia the program could be adapted for use in other states, as well. All we need is access to the same type of information that we used to create the original tool."

RESEARCH NEWS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Economic Development Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACT: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@edi.gatech.edu); Fax (404-894-4545).

TECHNICAL CONTACT:
Robert Lann (404-894-3475); E-mail: (robert.lann@edi.gatech.edu).

WRITER: Jack Lynch