DEVELOPER CERTIFICATION PROGRAM

Incentives are benefits that a landowner/developer can gain through informed development decisions, procedural guidelines, and established opportunities. Incentives can range from reduced permitting needs to direct financial benefits. Many cities across the US have established incentives for environmentally sensitive and energy efficient development. The incentives will be available to projects that met the requirements set out in the Development Certification Program.

We are currently researching possible incentives that could be paired with the suitability map. One thing to note is that these incentives will primarily be applicable to areas that are determined to have a landscape system (Green Infrastructure Element or sensitive contested area) that should be prioritized during development according to the map. In most cases areas that are highly suitable for development will not need or will not be eligible for incentives.

Based on incentive and economic research, both local and national, we have broken down the incentives into two categories: Active and Passive.

Passive incentives are economic benefits that can be realized by a property owner’s actions in design and construction techniques that respect and take advantage of larger landscape systems. These are direct benefits that the owner developer will create for himself based on his informed development decisions. These benefits may include reduced construction cost and increased real estate value, accelerated appreciation or avoiding additional regulatory requirements.

Active incentives are economic or procedural ‘payments’ to reimburse property owners for developing their property in ways that preserve the larger landscape systems. These incentives would typically be administered and distributed by the a third party, and may include expedited permitting, low interest rate loans, tax benefits, or even cash payments. Note that many of the typical permit-based incentives have meaningful value to developers and property owners, and can be successfully offered because of tighter development restrictions in many locales.

The passive incentives are self-enforced and will be defined further with more specific numbers and techniques. The active incentives will have to be managed by either a regulatory agency, a public/non-profit agency, or some other entity with the resources and interest to offer the incentive. These incentives are being closely paired with the maps to define a possible budget and specific conditions and procedures to institute and award the incentives.

Ultimately we will create an ‘accounting’ of available passive and active incentives that will provide the ‘budget’ available to influence land use in contested areas.  This ‘budget’ will be used to reassess the idealized land-use maps to reflect a realistic scenario within the limits of available resources, benefits and regulatory controls. As public acceptance will be required for the success of an incentives program, we will strive to continue an active dialogue through the project website throughout this task.