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Understanding the Cost to Provide Community Services in the Town of Holland

Cost of community services (COCS) studies are undertaken to examine the fiscal contribution of various land uses in a community during a single year. The COCS approach works by allocating revenues and expenditures found in the local government budgets to the land uses from which they were generated.

COCS Results:

  • The results of this study are fairly consistent with previous cost of community services (COCS) studies in Wisconsin and across the nation. In the Town of Holland, the cost to provide services to residential land uses generally exceeds the amount of revenues generated by these properties. In 2004, residential land uses demanded upwards of $1,000 per acre. This net fiscal drain was due in large part to the high cost of public education.
  • In contrast, the cost to provide services to non-residential land uses in the town of Holland is generally lower than the amount of revenues gene rated by these lands. On a per acre basis, commercial land uses consistently generated the highest level of net revenues. In 2004, commercial properties generated net revenues of over $175 per acre. Manufacturing, undeveloped and forested lands also generated positive net fiscal revenues, on the order of $10 per acre. Since 1996, net revenues from farmland have decreased from about $14 per acre to roughly $0.