New-fangled impact fees

Analyses the use of environmental linkage fees, one-off assessments levied against new developments to provide a share of the cost of preserving environmental resources, in Riverside and Kern counties, southern California. The authors argue that both the environment and development benefit from such fees since they allow large-scale planning of habitat preservation and are administratively efficient. The paper also considers regional-scale application of linkage fees, and outlines the mechanisms for setting up such projects. Insets to the main article describe the limitations of impact fees, provide examples of their use in other parts of the US, and detail California's overall fiscal structure. -P.Hardiman