March 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 47

and maintenance costs would be myopic and arrogant since the future ability to meet such costs is
unknown. Previous councils had sufficient vision to
create the opportunities a community currently enjoys. If a current council does not continue to make
the same opportunities available to future generations, they would be lacking vision.
A second rebuttal to the operations and maintenance argument is that amenities that are not on the
tax rolls in a community create much of the value
of properties that are on the tax rolls. Such amenities would include parks, schools, roads, churches,
street spaces, nonprofit arts facilities, police and
fire facilities and services, et al. Specifically in the
case of parks, the real estate market consistently
demonstrates that many people are willing to pay
a larger amount for property located close to parks
and open space areas. The higher value of these
residences means that their owners pay higher
property taxes. In many instances, if the incremental amount of taxes paid by each property which

It has been
widely
demonstrated in
the field of social
psychology that
this negative
framing of
consequences
has a powerful
persuasive
impact on
audiences.

is attributable to the presence of a nearby park is
aggregated, it will be sufficient to pay the annual
costs of operating and maintaining the park.
A third response to the operations and maintenance contention is that the costs can be minimized
by focusing only on natural parks. Cost of operations is higher for those parks containing elements
such as athletic fields. If a park is designed at the
outset with minimal maintenance costs in mind,
then that can be accomplished.
Finally, the empirical evidence in the past two
decades overwhelmingly reports that while residential development may generate significant tax
revenue, the cost of providing public services and
infrastructure to that development is likely to exceed the tax revenue emanating from it. Thus, preserving open space and creating parks can be
less expensive alternative to development. Indeed,
some communities have elected to acquire park
and open space land, rather than allow it to be used
for residential development, because this reduces

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Parks & Recreation 45

March 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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