Impact Fees Impact You

Every legislative session it seems like there is another debate about "impact fees," sometimes called development fees. This year is no exception. HB 2259: Local Development Fees: Procedures was introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Gilbert). Some at the legislature think this perennial debate is just another fight between homebuilders and cities, but it's much bigger than that -- impact fees impact you.

If you have purchased a new home in the last twenty years or so, odds are that the price of the home included the cost of an impact fee. The fee would have paid part of the costs for the subdivision's water and sewer lines, roads, storm drains and other infrastructure that you enjoy today. When a developer wants to build another new subdivision miles away, you probably don't want to pay for those new roads and sewer lines, too. That wouldn't be fair.

Phoenix created its impact fee program in 1988 to pay the costs of new infrastructure development in our rapidly growing city. The philosophy is simple: the costs of new roads, water and wastewater systems and other infrastructure should not be borne by residents of established areas; rather, new growth should “pay for itself.” Phoenix’s impact fee program charges the costs of new infrastructure development directly to builders, with credits and offsets available on a case-by-case basis. Impact fees are not a tax; the money that cities collect in impact fees is dedicated only to building the infrastructure that has been planned for the area they're collected in.

Any legislation that makes it harder for cities to set fees or to use them to build what's needed for a development is a problem for not just the city but all of its residents who don't want keep paying and paying for new infrastructure they'll probably never use. Right now the City of Phoenix opposes HB 2259 for those reasons. We're hopeful that we can work out our differences and not have this debate again for a year or two!

Remember to SHOP PHOENIX and tell your legislators to protect city revenues!

Source: P.L.A.N.