LA PLATA — Commercial property brings La Plata about $1.3 million a year more than it costs the town to serve, while the town’s homes, taken together, roughly break even, according to preliminary findings of a zoning study presented to the Town Council on Oct. 27.
The numbers come from Matrix Design Group, which has spent about 10 months building a parcel-by-parcel model of what each piece of land in town pays in and costs to serve. Town Manager Chuck Stevens called it one of three or four foundational studies La Plata expects to rely on for the next five to 10 years. “We’re going to go back to this over and over again,” he said.
That is why the first look drew a pointed warning. Councilman Paul Guttenberg said the model counts only general fund services and leaves out the water, sewer and stormwater systems that drive much of what it costs to live in La Plata. Used as is, he said, it could steer the town “in a really bad direction” on zoning and growth.
Who pays in, and who costs more
Matrix combined the town’s GIS parcel data, state property assessment records and zoning maps with La Plata’s fiscal 2026 budget. Property taxes were assigned parcel by parcel from assessed values. Other revenues and costs were spread across properties using measures of service demand, including household counts, parcel counts and the intensity of commercial and industrial development. The firm’s research lead said Matrix tested 81 combinations of those assumptions to see how much the results would move.
The town is overwhelmingly residential. Homes make up 86% of parcels and just over half the land. Townhomes alone account for about a third of all parcels but sit on just 3% of the land. Commercial property flips that pattern, holding about 6.5% of parcels on nearly 28% of the land.
Residential property generates about three-quarters of the revenue the study modeled and holds 80% of the town’s taxable value. It also accounts for 85% of modeled service costs, because police, parks and general government are driven largely by households. The tax base is also concentrated: just 1% of parcels hold about 20% of La Plata’s taxable value.
Netting revenue against cost, the preliminary results by land use are:
- Commercial: about $1.3 million a year more in revenue than in service costs, the largest surplus of any use.
- Industrial: about $271,000 a year, or roughly $5,100 an acre, the most productive land per acre.
- Residential: essentially break-even overall. Single-family detached homes showed a surplus; townhomes, condos and apartments showed deficits.
- Mixed use: near break-even. Commercial-leaning parcels netted about $370 an acre, while residential-leaning parcels lost about $270 an acre.
- Tax-exempt property: a deficit of about $284,000, which the researcher said is expected for parcels that pay no property tax but still use town services and often serve essential public functions.
By zoning district, the commercial highway district produced the largest surplus, more than $800,000 a year, followed by the central business district at just over $200,000. Larger-lot residential districts showed modest surpluses, while some smaller-lot residential districts ran deficits.
The researcher cautioned against reading the housing numbers as a verdict on density. Apartments and condos show high costs per acre because they pack many households onto little land, he said, which does not mean each household costs more to serve.
Four ways to grow by 2040
Matrix also modeled four growth scenarios through 2040, using the town’s future land use map to identify parcels that could be developed or redeveloped. All four left the town with an annual surplus. Continuing current trends, which lean residential, produced the smallest, about $2.3 million a year. An infill and downtown scenario and a balanced-growth scenario each came in just over $3 million. A commercial and employment expansion scenario produced the largest, about $3.8 million.
The firm stressed these are illustrations, not forecasts. Its preliminary recommendations: protect land for commercial and job-producing uses, encourage reinvestment along U.S. 301 and downtown, make sure mixed-use projects include workable commercial space, and review setbacks, parking minimums and other rules that can block redevelopment. On housing, the researcher said the aim is to understand the fiscal tradeoffs, not to discourage any housing type.
Chris Martin, Matrix’s chief technology officer, demonstrated a web map staff can use to filter by zoning district or land use, click on individual parcels and compare the four scenarios side by side.
‘A significant blind spot’
Guttenberg had the firm confirm the model covers only the general fund. Other than road resurfacing, he said, nearly all of La Plata’s infrastructure is paid for through the enterprise fund, which carries the town’s water and sewer systems. Those systems have been under strain: the town’s water use has been near the limit that triggers new conservation rules, and wastewater plant upgrades sit at the top of the council’s new priority list.
He also questioned how costs land on denser neighborhoods. Residential costs are assigned mainly by household, and the model does not use road miles. Guttenberg pointed to the Meadows apartments on Washington Avenue, which he said plugged into an existing road with a single new curb cut. The same number of homes on half-acre lots, he said, would require far more new pavement to maintain.
The researcher said the data are built at the parcel level, and assigning road costs to each parcel would add assumptions and uncertainty to a model that already runs more than 20,000 lines of code. Guttenberg countered that the town already maps its road network and other infrastructure in GIS, so it doesn’t have to guess which parcels touch town roads. The town’s own request for proposals asked bidders for a parcel-level look at tax revenue, service costs and infrastructure burden.
Guttenberg said many of the study’s recommendations run “almost 180 degrees opposite” of the land use, housing and growth goals in the town’s comprehensive plan. He asked that the full methodology be made public so residents can judge whether it carries unintended biases, and said he feared people would use the results to label some neighborhoods a drain. He said he has heard county-level politicians argue that homes below a certain size are subsidized by everyone else.
Martin said no decision is made in a vacuum and called the model one tool in the toolbox. It could be expanded with other data, he said, and the broader value of a development can offset what looks like a fiscal drain on paper.
More questions before the final report
Councilman Patrick McCormick asked which properties make up the 1% of parcels holding a fifth of the town’s taxable value, so staff can tell the council when a policy would hit them. The firm said it could identify those parcels and send them to staff. Councilman Tyjon “TJ” Johnson asked for the average assessed value of parcels that produce a positive fiscal impact, which the firm said it could calculate.
Mayor Jeannine James asked how annexing land for industrial use would affect the town. The researcher said an annexation should be judged on its added costs, not on how existing industrial parcels perform. If the town already has the infrastructure and service capacity, he said, it could gain tax revenue without a matching rise in operating costs. James said that is the question the town would have to weigh if raw land needed new infrastructure.
Matrix’s contract runs through the end of 2026, and the town will receive the model so staff can change assumptions and update the data. Guttenberg asked that the posted presentation be marked preliminary so future readers look for the final report. He also asked the firm to advise the town on how to close the gaps he raised, even if that work falls outside the current contract. Johnson suggested Stevens work with the firm on what fits within its scope. Councilman Gregory Sampson Jr. was absent.
