Infrastructure Development, Residential Growth and Impacts on Public Service Expenditure

This paper documents the use of geographic information science based planning support systems to evaluate the effects of infrastructure development on residential growth and resulting public service expenditure. The case example presented here investigates the impacts associated with a large water infrastructure development project. The effect of infrastructure on residential development is evaluated by comparing growth trends within areas of different levels of water supply and sewerage services. The effect of changing residential development patterns on public services expenditure is evaluated with a spatially explicit model linking urban form with revenues, expenditures and fiscally efficient areas of service provision for a delivery-based public service, police. Results confirm that the development of water infrastructure leads to residential growth and also indicate this growth in some locations leads to fiscally efficient provision of a public service. A primary recommendation from this research is that, in anticipation of growth, water planning should be comprehensive rather than single issue focused. Planning support systems are indicated to be useful tools supporting policy refinement for land-use and water planning