Sustainable Agriculture Literature Review - Boulder County

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Based on the above findings, and the fact that one-third of respondents were willing to
lease all of their water, the surveyors concluded that there is enough willingness to make
a leasing market economically viable. What is unclear at this point is the municipal water
suppliers’ willingness to pay for leases and if so, whether the price they are willing to pay
meets the desires of the rights holders. 860
Land
Competition for land use has economic implications for both the tax base and residential
property values, however, decisions regarding land use are largely dependent on how
the use contributes to the tax base. The American Farmland Trust (AFT) has performed
numerous studies on the economic impacts of rural land development and has
determined that in Colorado, residential development requires on average $1.15 in
community services for every $1 of tax revenue it contributes. Farm and forest land
requires $0.35 in services for every $1 of outgoing tax revenue. Finally, commercial and
industrial uses demand the least services ($0.27 for every $1) relative to their
contribution. 861
The AFT’s methodology has received significant criticism, however, for being inadequate
and biased. Researchers at Colorado State University performed their own analysis in
an attempt to address some of the shortcomings of the AFT’s methodology. They
calculated the ratio of community service cost to each dollar of generated revenue for
each county in Colorado. Their analysis showed that “all Colorado counties, except
Elbert County ($0.536:1), show a negative net fiscal impact of dispersed rural residential
development and the majority lie within a range consistent with AFT findings…however,
there is substantial variation across counties.” Their results also indicate that the
character and type of development need to be considered, rather than aggregating landuse
type, in order to determine whether or not it will result in a net fiscal loss. For
Boulder County, the calculated cost ratio of providing community services per every
dollar of tax revenue generated by converting 35 acres of agricultural land to one county
average household is 1.108, demonstrating that converting agricultural land to
residential use ends up costing the county. 862
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