Well it sounded like a reasonable idea

Why is it anything that makes sense not play so simply here in our great Commonwealth? Ideas like placing responsibility for increased burdens on services on those that force them on the town....

It turns out developers once again hold all the cards here. I'm sensing a trend.

There's a really good overview article here which describes the state of affairs here in the Commonwealth of Mass.

The Mass Supreme Court (SC) has ruled in several cases (Franklin Ma vs Greater Franklin Development Associates, also Emerson College vs City of Boston) that impact fees are really taxes masquerading as fees. Towns can generally not levy taxes unless enabled by the Mass legislature - we derive our rights to self-governance from the state, except for local matters which fall under the Home Rule amendment of 1966.

So although fees fall under the rubric of home rule, they see impact fees as conveying no special privilege or particularized benefit to those paying them. So if we build a new school, the whole town benefits not just the fee payer. Strange since without new development we wouldn't need to think of additional resources, but that's the way the Mass SC ruled.

In many states like Florida and California, where they experienced widespread growth and the resultant strain on resources (especially things like water supply in California) this is not the case and it seems to make a lot of sense. They have the most experience in impact fees and generally the grant the most power under home rule to the local municipalities.

Essentially impact fees could still work but the language and scope etc of the bylaw has to be very carefully constructed. Offsetting additional school costs appears impossible under the current situation. One way to alleviate this is for the State to pass enabling legislation, but they have been relatively silent to this point.

On Cape Cod, Barnstable County is the only area with enabling legislation for assessing impact fees which was passed in 1989. See this article I dug up on the topic. It's still fairly restrictive, leaning more toward the "specifically and uniquely attributable" test ala Illinois but it's something.

Anyway, I think this is still an area we should explore for the Planning Board in conjunction with town counsel and Central Mass Regional Planning. Although impact fees for schools have not been possible (Greater Franklin Associates v Franklin Ma) it may be possible to do this in another way for other purposes.

The article mentions the use of special permits for instance. There could be a fee if the zoning requires a special permit due to increased density or some other factor. Then again, we're trying to encourage more density for other reasons. It's a difficult balancing act thanks to our SC rulings.