Do impact fees raise the price of existing housing?

Abstract

This article uses 1991–2000 data on single‐family housing sales from King County, WA, to provide new evidence relating to the effects of impact fees on housing prices. The hedonic regression method is used to examine the effects of these fees on existing housing as well as their differential effects on price as determined by housing quality.

Impact fees raise existing home prices by about 83 percent of the amount of the fee. The increase is 103 percent for high‐quality homes and is not statistically significant for low‐quality homes. The owners of high‐quality homes realize capital gains from impact fees. However, such fees do not raise the price of low‐quality homes. To the extent that low‐quality housing is more likely to be owned by low‐ and moderate‐income households, which are often composed of racial and ethnic minorities, this finding has significant policy implications for the supporters of impact fees.     

2D Barcodes: A Novel and Simple Method for Denture Identification

Several methods of denture marking have been described in the literature. However, most of them are expensive, time‐consuming, and do not permit the incorporation of large amounts of information. We propose a novel and simple method incorporating 2D codes which has several advantages over the existing methods. A 2D code was generated in the dental office and inserted into a maxillary denture. The code was then read using software downloaded into a mobile phone giving access to the website containing details about the patient. The denture was also subjected to durability tests, which did not hamper the efficacy of the 2D code. 2D coding for dentures is a simple, less expensive method with the potential of storing a large amount of information that can be accessed on‐site by the forensic investigator, thus allowing quick identification of the denture wearer.