Road Impact Fees
In 2000 a Road Impact Fee study concluded that the city road impact fees needed to be increased to $1742. Rather than enacting the fees at that time a majority of the city council set into motion a 5year plan to implement Road Impact Fees over time. Today the Road Impact Fees still remain $243 below the recommendations of the 2000 study. Efforts to accelerate those fees also failed when a majority of council refused to recognize the negative financial impact to the city by their failure to act accordingly.
This issue last came before council on Sept. 15, 2003 at the request of former Mayor Kempe. Asfour, Boyd, Day, Rosado and Tate all voted against increasing the Road Impact Fee to the level suggested as being needed back in 2000. The failure of these individuals to vote responsibly has resulted in the loss to the city of almost $5 million from new single family home construction alone, during this same short period of time.
The city’s new study suggests that Road Impact Fees need to be increased again and that that increase may be as much as 80%. As we mentioned in the past few years the city lost almost five million dollars because of the incremental fee schedule council enacted. At the May 9, 2005 city council meeting Ord. 75-05 amending the Road Impact fees was introduced and will come before council for a vote.
We find it interesting that Council member Dolores Bertolini who originally sponsored this ordinance withdrew her name as sponsor, giving no reason. The mayor asked if another council member would sponsor this ordinance. This resulted in there being a very long silence before anyone would step up to the plate and put their name to it. Finally Council member Jeffers agreed that he would sponsor the ordinance.
All of this leads us to wonder why Bertolini withdrew her name as sponsor to the ordinance? This is a city administration initiative that is bringing the ordinance forward citing the need to increase Road Impact Fees. In all likelihood the CCCIA will probably again complain to council about there being an increase (any increase) to the cost of a new home. That is exactly what they did in 2000 and council acquiesced to their “concerns.” As a result, by the city’s own calculations there has been a loss of over $5million. The question is how many of them (council) will vote against the new recommended road impact fee increase again or water it down like they did previously? Time will tell.
posted by Civic at 5/18/2005 01:37:00 PM
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Last night City council approved the new Road Impact fee last night on an 8-0 vote. Civic applauds this action although Ordinance 75-05 was not approved as written.
The sponsoring Council member Jeffers, made an excellent presentation in asking council to approve the ordinance including the provision that would allow for automatic indexing to the fees (if needed) during a three year period before council would have to revisit these fees. As Jeffers put it, this would have provided the construction industry with a measure of “predictability.” This provision of the ordinance was amended on a 5-3 vote. Those favoring indexing were Jeffers, LePera and Stevens. The indexing or “predictability” would have removed the politicizing process from Impact Fees that has occurred in this city ever since enacting these fees. This process has literally cost this city millions of dollars. In the absence of Impact Fees the only other revenue source to make up that difference is property taxes.
Last night during deliberation Rosado announced his complete agreement with Jeffers on the ordinance. However, when it came to his vote, Rosado reversed himself and voted with Day, Boyd, Bertolini and Feichthaler on indexing these fees. We all need to remember that the first major vote Rosado ever made on council was about two years ago when Kempe tried to increase the road impact fees to the level suggested in the 2001 study. Rosado voted against that increase and as a result, according to the city, we have lost about $5 million in road impact fee money alone.
The other concession council made last night on the ordinance was suggested by Mayor Feichthaler. This was to delay the enactment of the fees from Aug. 1 to Sept. 1. This action according to the city will cost us, conservatively speaking, about $600K and more likely closer to $750K alone.
The bottom line is the city has increased Road Impact fees but as we all saw last night the issue of politics as usual continues to reign on city council.
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