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Construction is great for our Town’s finances and reduces future taxes for existing property owners. Increasing construction-based property tax growth from 1.3% to 2.1% per year would have arguably avoided all overrides for the past 20 years.

With the property tax override on the May 5th 2026 ballot I became curious about how property taxes work here in Brookline. I've also found that most discussions about property taxes ignore the impact of new property growth from renovation and new development. I wanted to develop a first principles understanding of how it all works, the financial benefits of new growth, and importantly how new growth affects the taxes of an existing property owner (short answer: new growth ca