Majority rules: Council votes 5-3 in support of proposed road impact fees
Posted on Wednesday, April 4, 2007
The Fayetteville City Council wants residents to vote for road impact fees.
Or at least a majority of them do.
Aldermen voted 5-3 on Tuesday to approve a resolution stating that a majority of aldermen support the road impact fees that will be before voters at a special election April 10.
The resolution was amended at the request of Ward 3 Alderman Bobby Ferrell, who didn't want residents to get the wrong idea by the original wording, which stated the fees had the support of the full council.
Ferrell, one of the three dissenters, has consistently opposed impact fees when given an opportunity. The other two aldermen voting against the resolution were Robert Rhoads, who also represents Ward 3, and Adella Gray, who represents Ward 1.
Gray noted that while she said she supported impact fees during her campaign for office, she doesn't support the fees as proposed. Gray's comments were in line with those offered by Mayor Dan Coody, who also opposes this version of road impact fees.
Coody said he believes this particular fee would be too regressive but he might consider supporting a different version if given the opportunity. He did offer his appreciation to a representative of the group lobbying against the fees, a year after it had helped the city push a 1-cent sales tax increase last year.
Gray said she doesn't believe the ordinance is fair because the same fee would apply to a one-bedroom house as a five-bedroom house.
Mike Henry spoke on behalf of Citizens 4 Fayetteville, which reunited to fight the fees, and warned against the passage of the ordinance. Henry said the city is already losing commercial developments that are scared of the additional impact fees. If those fees are approved, he said, it will mean higher taxes for residents and a loss of money for the schools.
The argument that commercial development won't locate in Fayetteville carried weight with Ferrell, but not with Ward 1 Alderman Brenda Thiel.
"Commercial is going to locate here because people want to live here," Thiel said.
Businesses, just like residents, want good roads, Thiel said, and if the city had passed fees sooner there might not have been a need to raise sales tax to pay for roads. Not only will the fees lessen the future need of sales tax, she said, but they will also be fairer to developers.
Thiel said there are cases when developers have similar-size projects but one is paying a lot more to improve roads because more of his or her property faces the street. That leaves the developer with less frontage, though the same impact, paying less, she said.
Ward 4 Alderman Shirley Lucas agreed with Thiel that the fees would level the playing field for developers, but she reminded aldermen of a promise made during the sales tax campaign - "We promised to diversify. "Lucas said the city needs to stop depending solely upon sales tax to fund the needs of the community. Impact fees are one way to start spreading around the financial burden.
"If we can diversify our revenue, it won't be too heavy a burden on any one person," she said.
Lucas also argued that had the traditional way of doing things been working, there wouldn't be such a problem with Mount Comfort Road, where the city doesn't even have the money to add a turning lane to get to a school.
Jeff Erf, part of Vote For Fayetteville, the group lobbying on behalf of the fees, asked for support. He encouraged aldermen and residents to pass the fees so the city can add a projected $ 3. 4 million a year to streets.
Ward 4 Alderman Lioneld Jordan, the primary supporter of the fees, said he brought the resolution forward because of calls asking where aldermen stood and because city staff has been working on the fee ordinance for the past two years.
More information about the fees can be found at the city's Web site, www. accessfayetteville. org. Both groups also have their own Web sites at www. citizens 4 fayetteville. org and www. voteforfayetteville. org.
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