Each year, Sugar Land and Missouri City are required by their city charters to create and file a multiyear capital improvement program. This document lays out major building projects the city intends to work on during the coming five-year period. The capital improvement program is filed when the city files its budget for the coming fiscal year. The first year of the plan is incorporated into the annual budget to appropriate funds for the specific projects, according to the Sugar Land city website. Capital projects are those work projects that are not considered routine. They are usually expensive, and in cases where something is to be built, that thing is usually expected to a have a long use life. However, not all capital projects involve construction. A capital project might include an expensive study or research to be performed, although that usually will lead to something getting built.