Weighing the impact: Mayor clarifies position on proposed impact fees
Posted on Sunday, April 8, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/51882/
With the issue of road impact fees to be decided Tuesday, Mayor Dan Coody is ready to talk about his preferred option.
“ I would like to support the street impact fees, if implemented differently, ” said Coody.
Coody said he could support a tiered version of the fees that reflects differences in user groups. He said the fees, as proposed, run counter to the planning principles espoused by city leaders.
When the City Council was preparing to pass a resolution of support for the fees last week, Coody took a moment to clarify that he couldn’t “ cheer lead” for this version of the fees but didn’t offer an alternative.
Coody said he was pleased to see Ward 4 Alderman Lioneld Jordan on a forum saying that he supported looking at a graduated fee schedule. Coody said he had brought the idea up during Street Committee meetings about the impact fees, but left it alone when those suggestions weren’t included in the final ordinance. There was no veto offered, Coody said, because the ordinance was brought to the council after a lot of discussion that occurred over a couple of years.
“ With all that staff time and City Council time, I didn’t know there would be any interest in revisiting it, ” Coody said.
Coody said his problems with the existing ordinance is that the fees are applied generally across the city, whether a person is building on the edge of town or in the center. Coody said he also has trouble with the lack of consideration given for the differences in the size of homes, noting that a person building a one-bedroom house would have to pay the same amount as one building a fivebedroom house.
If it means another impact fee study, Coody said, it is worth it to have a tiered system. Such an approach is more equitable and better fulfills the city’s planning goals, he said.
Coody said, if the ordinance passes, he will propose looking at modifications. If it fails, he said, it would probably mean waiting awhile and taking time to make the necessary changes that would allow him to support the fees.
Jordan said he plans on starting the discussion of graduated fees after the election. Jordan said he became interested in the concept after it was mentioned by consultants working on City Plan 2025 in February of 2006 but left it alone after he found out it would take another study.
At the time, Jordan said, staff was working off the study that had already been done, and it made sense to keep moving in that direction as it had taken a couple of years to get there. Jordan said he is interested in looking at a graduated schedule that would charge people more for building on the outskirts of town then for building in the center.
“ I’m not interested in looking at different rates for the number of bedrooms, ” Jordan said.
Kit Williams, city attorney, said the council could look at changing the way in which the fees are applied, but the more differentiations are made, the more difficult it becomes to implement. The council considered several options when it was debating the water and sewer fees, including basing the fee on the number of bathrooms, but decided that would be too complicated.
Basing the fee on the number of rooms would also be a challenge for inspectors who would have to determine whether a room was a bedroom, office or parlor, Williams said. He said, while it is possible to say that the full fee should be charged to people near the city limits and reduce the amount further into the center, that creates its own issues.
Williams said there would be questions by people living on the boundaries, wondering why they have to pay a higher impact fee than the person across the street. Additionally, while the argument would be that people living further out have to drive more to get into town, Williams said residents in town have to drive out to the mall.
There are reasons the impact fee consultants decided to treat the city as a whole, Williams said.