This chapter synthesizes the insights gained from the review of development charges levied by local governments in India and across the globe (Chapters 1, 2,and 4), the factors to be considered while designing and implementing a development charge program (Chapter 3), and the in-depth Indian and US case studies (Chapter 5), to provide policy recommendations for levying these charges. Specifically, the recommendations are organized into several categories that cover enabling legal framework, transparency, equity, revenue yield, funding state- and regional-level infrastructure, meeting growth management and other planning objectives, political feasibility, and institutional capacity.

While several recommendations are sprinkled across the previous chapters, they are consolidated in this chapter so that all the major recommendations are in one place. Furthermore, discussing them in this chapter allows us to see how findings from more than one chapter support many of these recommendations; that is, they bubble up as key recommendations after considering the entirety of the development charges landscape.

Robust enabling legal framework

A combination of state-level authorizing legislation, rules, and policies and local jurisdiction-level ordinances, rules, and policies that implement the state-granted authority provide a robust legal framework for levying development charges. This framework could draw upon various sources of power. For example, in the US, these charges are justified either as a regulatory fee (to meet the government’s larger public health and safety objectives) or as a service fee (to meet the cost of providing a service, irrespective of the health and safety objectives). Landmark court cases and the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment provide further support. The national constitution provides similar support in South Africa.

Various forms of enabling legislation

Notably, state-level enabling legislation can come in different forms, such as development-charge-specific authorizing legislation. The Mitigation Fee Act of California, US, and the Building Tax Act of Kerala, India, are two examples. Sometimes, other state-level regulations accompany the act, such as in Tamil Nadu, India, where the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act, 1971, and the I&A Charges Rules, 2008, combine to provide the state-level legal framework for levying I&A Charges. Similarly, in Florida, US, the Impact Fee Act and the Growth Management Act’s concurrency requirements provide the legal framework. In other cases, broader state-level legislation provides the authority to levy development charges, such as the Urban Planning and Development Act, 2012, in Bihar, India, and the Planning Act, 2016, and the Economic Development Act, 2012, in Queensland, Australia.