General Resources

The How-to Brief topics address key challenges that impede implementation of Value Capture practices. These "how-to" topics will help practitioners have a deeper understanding of how to implement the detailed practices or consider better approaches and processes.

The Value Capture fact sheets related to the Value Capture technique provide transportation professionals an overview and applicable examples to creative thinking and apply real-world projects.

This document provides information for State departments of transportation and local public agencies to consider implementing value capture. It covers value capture techniques and features, including developer contributions, transportation utility fees, special taxes and fees, tax increment financing, joint development, and naming rights. It includes options for making the business case for value capture, as well as overviews of the regulatory framework involved and risk management. Several case studies and examples are provided.

This quick start guide, in conjunction with the value capture toolkit, is a concise reference guide and a collection of resources to help policy makers and private entities explore value capture as a mix funding and financing mechanism for transportation projects and programs. The quick start guide covers what value capture is, the different forms it can take, resources needed to implement, and lessons learned from small county and municipal applications to larger statewide programs. This quick start guide will provide wayfinding for individuals and organizations with little or no experience with value capture and still provide resources helpful to practitioners with experience using value capture.

As States explore value capture implementation, they seek to understand the legal prerequisites and standards applied to these techniques. This report explores some of these legal issues.

FHWA develop a series of primers to assist practitioners understand and navigate the different aspects of implementing Value Capture Strategies in transportation projects. Value capture is an innovative revenue-generation tool that may be either project specific or programmatic in nature. Project-specific tools include those that are typically applied to specific transportation projects.

This March 2019 TRB webinar discusses value capture financing and derives information included in NCHRP Research Report 873, Guidebook to Funding Transportation Through Land Value Return and Recycling. Land value capture may help communities achieve transportation, environmental, economic development, and fiscal self-sufficiency goals. The presenter defines value capture funding and financing. He also differentiates various "value capture" techniques that are often lumped together, but that have very different economic incentives. This recording seeks to help local officials match the right funding mechanism with their own particular circumstances. The links at the end of this presentation can also be viewed directly at the bottom of this page.

The Georgia Development Impact Fee Act (DIFA) was enacted into law in 1990. This website reviews the rules for local governments that wish to finance the expansion of their infrastructure systems through the impact fee system and the specific types of facilities and infrastructures listed in the law.

This page provides a general overview of impact fees for cities and counties in Washington State, including information on how they may be used and sample documents from selected jurisdictions.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Report 873: Guidebook to Funding Transportation Through Land Value Return and Recycling presents guidance on ways to mobilize some portion of property-value increases to fund maintenance and operations as well as investment in the infrastructure. Because local government typically has authority to deal with matters related to land use and land-related revenue-generating mechanisms, access to land value return and recycling - a subset of real estate-based value capture methods - may require enabling legislation or partnering with local agencies. This report includes examples of applications of land value return and recycling as well as model legislation and institutional structures to facilitate the strategy

This paper summarizes the findings of nearly 100 studies concerning the impacts of transit service on nearby property values, and the feasibility of capturing this additional value to finance transit improvements. The results indicate that proximity to transit often increases property values enough to offset some or all of transit system capital costs.

This 2017 study examines the Commonwealth of Massachusetts current value capture tools, drawing on examples from around the country, as well as interviews with 35 state, regional and local officials. The study also considers the potential for value capture through five case studies of transportation and TOD projects currently planned or underway in Massachusetts. Based on this research, the study recommends several ways in which Massachusetts laws, policies, and regulations could be changed in order to encourage broader use of value capture for transportation and TOD infrastructure generally, with a special focus on transit.

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) has released Research Report 190: Guide to Value Capture Financing for Public Transportation Projects. Value capture is the public recovery of a portion of increased property and other value created as a result of public infrastructure investment. The report identifies the requirements necessary for successful value creation through transportation infrastructure investment and capturing a portion of that value through specific value capture mechanisms. It includes six case studies that provide practical examples of successful value capture from public transportation investments.

This report demonstrates the application of value-capture strategies to supplement transportation funding for the completion of Trunk Highway (TH) 610 in Maple Grove, Minnesota. Using spatial and regression analysis, the report estimates that the completion of TH-610, with two additional exits, would lead to a significant growth in assessed property value, including about $12 million in land value and $5 million in buildings. The growth would result in about $4.3 million in property tax capacity, and about $1 million in annual property tax revenue. With multiple scenarios of hypothetical value-capture designs, we estimate the revenue potential of value capture would range from about $12 million to about $37 million, which could be used to supplement project finance to expedite the completion of TH-610.

This report presents information on financing mechanisms used by transportation agencies to capture a portion of the economic value created by public investment in transportation infrastructure to fund transportation improvements. The report provides an overview of ten types of value capture mechanisms and resents case examples of how transportation agencies have used these mechanisms to help fund highway improvement projects.

This Metropolitcan Planning Council article defines key Value Capture concepts and provides a selection of historical case studies.

This study was commissioned to assess the potential for using value capture techniques for roadway and transit projects in the region. The study analyzes value capture mechanisms and their feasibility in the Chicago area, evaluates economic and development impacts to determine the value of the mechanism, and provides recommendations on the success of value capture across multiple types of transportation projects and development scenarios.

This Brookings Institution study examines accessibility and its importance in assessing transportation performance and in creating a sustainable transportation funding source. It first delineates the concept of accessibility through a comparison with the common transportation performance metric of mobility. The paper then explains how accessibility can help fund transportation through a virtuous circle of access, land value, and transportation infrastructure. Local, state, and federal governments must better understand the structure and characteristics of value-capture policies if they are to develop their full potential as a sustainable funding source.

This report, commissioned by DC Surface Transit, Inc. analyzes the options for using value capture as a source of revenue for the build out of the H Street Streetcar Corridor. The report found that it is possible to use three forms of value capture, including TIF, special assessment district, or sharing of private property value increases, to pay for 100 percent of construction costs without federal funding. The paper was written by a consortium of policy and transportation engineering experts from HDR, Reconnecting America, and The Brookings Institution.

This report identifies eight policies involving value capture. These policies include land value taxes, tax increment financing, special assessments, transportation utility fees, development impact fees, negotiated exactions, joint development and air rights. Each policy is evaluated according to the following four criteria: efficiency, equity, sustainability, and feasibility. Legal and administration issues as they relate to implementation in the state of Minnesota are also examined.

This publication examines the various ways in which land values can be used to help pay for investment in urban infrastructure, in addition to their role as part of the property tax base. It focuses on the principles that underlie different land-based financing techniques, their efficiency in theory, and, above all, what we can learn from practical attempts to convert principles about land-based financing into practice in developing countries. Much of this practical application involves innovative use of public-private partnerships.

This paper summarizes the findings of previous studies that measure the impact of transit on nearby property values; provides a detailed discussion of the role of property owners and developers in value capture strategies; offers examples of tools currently used by transit agencies to capture the value of transit to help defray capital costs; and provides a framework for thinking about what kinds of value capture strategies are possible in a given situation.

This report addresses the controversy around impact fees by reviewing the academic literature concerning the effect of impact fees on employment and the economy generally. In addition, the report presents a new analysis of the relationship between impact fees and job creation by assessing impact fee and economic data, assembled for the period 1993 to 1999, for the 67 counties of Florida.

This paper outlines important policy and legal issues involved with Development Impact Fees. Selected state experience is then reviewed.

Local governments throughout the country are increasingly using impact fees to shift more of the costs of financing public facilities from the general taxpayer to the beneficiaries of those new facilities. This webpage provides an online version of the American Planning Association Policy Guide on Impact Fees.

IEDC is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization serving economic developers by providing information on trends and best practices, networking opportunities, professional development courses and numerous other services.

Comprehensive website offers Tax Increment Financing information such as case studies, historical and legal background, state-by-state online map, and a Tax Increment Financing webcourse.