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Haverhill hires fiscal impact consultant to analyze development costs for special permits
Summary
The Haverhill City Council and city administration engaged consultant Judy Barrett to produce project-level fiscal impact analyses — including a 10-year review of municipal finances — to inform special permit and zoning decisions; councilors asked that the analyses distinguish costs attributable to development and not be used to set impact fees.
The Haverhill City administration announced that the city has retained fiscal impact consultant Judy Barrett to provide project-level analyses intended to help the City Council evaluate the costs and revenues associated with proposed development and zoning changes.
The consultant engagement was introduced by Mayor Melinda E. Barrett and William Pillsbury, Haverhill economic development director, who said the work was requested by the council and will “populate those tools with real time data” so departments and the council can evaluate the net fiscal effect of projects. Pillsbury described the analysis as estimating community service costs (police, fire, schools), projecting local government revenues, and calculating net revenue (revenue minus cost).
The study will look at major land-use classes — industrial, commercial and residential — and will review municipal finance records going back about 10 years to establish trends and inform projections. “She’s gonna go back on the city records for 10 years,” Pillsbury said, adding the goal is to avoid relying on a single-year snapshot. The analysis will include interviews with department staff and a methodology for assigning service costs to land-use categories.
Council members said the analysis should help the council make more informed decisions on special permits and zoning changes. Vice President Jordan said the project is “exactly what we wanted.” Councilor Mitchelson added: “This, I think will enable us to, make better decisions.” Councilors emphasized that the fiscal impact analysis is not intended as a mechanism for setting impact fees; Pillsbury said explicitly, “Fiscal impact analysis is not a methodology for setting impact fees.”
City staff said the consultant will also identify costs that are unrelated to development so the city can separate baseline municipal expenditures from costs that new development would incrementally trigger. Judy Barrett was noted to be available to present findings in person when the council receives draft reports.
No formal council vote to approve the consultant was recorded in the meeting transcript; city staff indicated the consultant was hired through the city procurement process and will begin interviews and data collection.
The council and administration said results will be applied project by project — for example, to evaluate a 4-unit building versus a 290-unit project — and would be presented in today’s dollars with multi-year projections. The city also plans to use the analysis to evaluate fiscal impacts of proposed zoning changes and to provide metrics the council can apply to special-permit applications.
