My fiscal impact analysis on Richmond Glen / Serenity Ranch

Jesse Buchanan had a piece about the Richmond Glen / Serenity Ranch easement in today's MRJ. I can't find it online, but here's an excerpt:

During Fazzone's presentation of the request, Town Councilor Tim White questioned the value to the Town of granting the easement.

Fazzone answered that there would be a benefit. "It would appear to be a tax-positive to the town," he said.

"I'm not convinced of that," White replied.

And since no one in Town Hall seemed interested enough to conduct a fiscal impact study to substantiate the above assertion, I took it upon myself. Here it is:Assumptions are as follows:

A - range of estimates provided by the attorney
B - provided by the attorney
D - range of estimates provided by the attorney
F - my estimate using the old cliche 2.3 kids as the high estimate, then chose 1.0 kid as the low estimate and divided in half for the middle estimate
H - see my estimate here, I used the schools' own numbers
J - see my estimate here, I used the fiscal impact analysis for the residential component of the proposed north end development
L - the attorney mentioned $350,000 as a taxable number for age-restricted units, I chose a lower number that is likely more indicative of other age-restricted developments in town
M - this number is a guess based on some uninformed discussion last night
N - L x M
O - my guess that has no basis in fact
Q - 2009 / 10 mill rate

Please challenge my assumptions. I hope this leads to an actual discussion and not just more of last night's all-too-common discussion that is nearly devoid of critical thinking.

And consider that (due to space constraints and really small print) I associated low revenue with low cost and high revenue with high cost. It could easily turn out to be high revenue with low cost or vice versa. In fact, I ran through those scenarios. But these three scenarios paint a similar picture without the information overload.

And whoops! I almost forgot. There was at least one other fiscal impact that may be taken into account when the Council votes.

Tim White