HomeMy WebLinkAboutImpact Fee Policy Discussion Commission Memorandum
REPORT TO: Honorable Mayor and City Commission
FROM: Andy Epple, Director of Planning and Community Development
Chris Kukulski, City Manager
SUBJECT: Impact Fee Program Policy Discussion (Gallatin Association of Realtors
and Chamber of Commerce Proposals to Modify or Defer Payments)
MEETING DATE: August 31, 2009
AGENDA ITEM TYPE: Action
RECOMMENDATION: Consider proposals from Gallatin Association of Realtors and
Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as staff comments, and provide staff with
direction on how to proceed.
BACKGROUND: In letters to the Commission dated August 3, and August 18, 2009
respectively, the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) and Gallatin Association of
Realtors (GAR) have requested significant modifications to the City’s Impact Fee Program (see
attached letters). The modifications are proposed primarily to stimulate economic growth during
the economic downturn and beyond.
The Chamber’s two-part proposal requests: 1) a permanent change in policy, to collect impact
fees at the time a certificate of occupancy (CO) is granted, rather than at the time a building
permit is issued; and 2) a temporary change in policy (18 months), for commercial projects only,
to allow for optional “payment plans” – one with a 2% discount for full payment up front (at
time of CO), or a five or ten year payment option, with the City financing payments with a
below-market interest rate. This part of the Chamber proposal recommends the interest collected
on payments be put into the City’s Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund (EDRLF).
GAR’s proposal recommends that: “For residential construction, declare a holiday from impact
fees for the rest of 2009. Beginning in 2010, gradually bring the fees back per quarter until the
current levels are again reached.” For commercial construction, GAR proposes payment options
similar to the Chamber’s proposal, to be effective indefinitely. GAR further recommends that
the payment option program be extended to residential as well as commercial properties.
POLICY DISCUSSION: The Chamber’s and GAR’s proposals reflect nationwide interest in
trying to stimulate local economies by adjusting impact fee collections or, in some cases
eliminating impact fees altogether. The movement has, predictably, attracted attention from
national experts in the field of impact fee studies and regulations. Paul Tischler of TischlerBise
Consultants, who have prepared impact fee studies for Gallatin County and Missoula, recently
sent a newsletter posing the question: “Should Your Community Reduce, Waive or Suspend
Impact Fees?” (see copy, attached). TischlerBise argue, “No,” for five basic reasons:
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1. Questions of fairness and equal treatment between those who recently paid the full fee
amounts and those who will now not pay the fees.
2. Impact fees, by supporting investment in infrastructure, are an important component of
economic stimulus.
3. The demand for additional infrastructure capacity from new development does not
disappear if impact fees are reduced or suspended.
4. Having sufficient infrastructure capacity is a competitive advantage that enhances the
economic development potential of a community.
5. There is little evidence that suggests eliminating or suspending impact fees encourages
new development activity.
Staff would echo the concerns raised by TischlerBise, especially regarding “equal treatment.”
Tischler points out that a “holiday” from paying impact fees could result in the City having to
reimburse hundreds of thousands of dollars to individuals who paid fees prior to holiday being
enacted. So staff would strongly caution the Commission with regard to considering any sort of
suspension of impact fees.
Changing our long-standing practice of collecting impact fees at the time of building permit
issuance also raises concerns with staff, primarily for pragmatic reasons. Namely, it is well
understood in the building and development industry that cash available for payment of bills at
the end of a construction project is notoriously in short supply. Staff believes that deferring
impact fee payments until that critical moment in the building process will increase the
likelihood of impact fees not being collected. However, staff understands the concern raised by
the Chamber and GAR about carrying interest costs for impact fee payments and offers a
possible solution below.
Deferring payments through various financing mechanisms will essentially put the City in the
position of being a bank, and will require significant additional expenses to the City to
administer the equivalent of a mortgage lending program. The City would possibly need to hire
an additional FTE to basically serve as a loan officer, to ensure that loan documents are properly
completed, processed, recorded, monitored, and released upon completion of payments.
The other problem with deferral of impact fee payments is that contractors working on major
capital facilities need to get paid as work is completed, not on a deferred payment schedule. If
impact fees from new development are not available to pay for construction projects underway
now (or in the near term), the City will need to borrow from the General fund or other sources to
make timely payments to contractors. This is not a good match of “sources and uses of funds”
and, again, will add to the cost City property owners end up paying for new development. The
co-mingling of funds increases the complexity of the City’s infrastructure funding. Section 7-6-
1602, MCA (see attached) requires extensive documentation in order for the City to have an
impact fee program. The additional complexity will increase costs to the City in the
documentation required to have an impact fee program. Should the City seek to recover those
costs through allowed administrative charges it would have the effect of raising the impact fee.
As acknowledged above, interest payments on paid impact fees during the building construction
process are an understandable concern. Staff would suggest that a simple program of possibly
reimbursing project owners for reasonable, documented interest payments on construction loans
attributed to the payment of impact fees could be explored. The source of reimbursement could
be the City’s Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund (although in this case staff envisions
a grant program for interest reimbursement rather than a loan program).
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FISCAL EFFECTS: As discussed above, implementing an impact fee payment plan program
would increase administrative costs and could result in the need for an additional, trained FTE,
probably in the Finance Department. In general, deferring impact fee charges will result in
higher costs to the general tax / rate payer in Bozeman, primarily in the form of borrowing costs
from other funds to allow for timely payment of bills to contractors. More detailed fiscal
analysis will be prepared for any specific policy direction the Commission provides staff.
ALTERNATIVES: As suggested by the City Commission.
Attachments: August 3, 2009 Chamber of Commerce Letter
August 18, 2009 Gallatin Association of Realtors Letter
TischlerBise Consultant Newsletter
Section 7-6-1602 MCA
Report compiled on: August 26, 2009
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Dear Client/Colleague,
Should Your Community Reduce, Waive or
Suspend Impact Fees?
Over the past year or so we have received many
inquiries from clients and others about the wisdom of
waiving, reducing and/or temporarily suspending impact
fees in order to encourage new development. In
response, we included an article in our last newsletter
that explored the top five reasons not to reduce, waive or eliminate impact fees. A summary
is provided below:
1. A suspension or elimination of impact fees raises a general question of fairness and equal
treatment between those who recently paid the full fee amounts and those who will now not
pay the fees. Communities could face the choice of having to subsidize new development
with General Fund dollars or refunding millions of dollars to previous fee payers in order to
avoid equal protection challenges.
2. Impact fees are an important component of "economic stimulus." Investments in
infrastructure are being touted in both Washington, DC, and State capitals around the
country as stimulating the economy and creating much needed jobs. Since impact fees can
only be used for growth-related infrastructure, the suspension or elimination of development
fees and the loss of subsequent infrastructure investments by local governments contradicts
this effort to help restore the economy.
3. The demand for additional infrastructure capacity from new development does not
disappear if impact fees are reduced or suspended. The alternative is declining levels-of-
service as existing infrastructure networks become more burdened with additional demand.
4. Having sufficient infrastructure capacity is a competitive advantage that enhances the
economic development potential of a community.
5. Finally, there is little evidence that suggests eliminating or suspending impact fees
encourages new development activity. Many jurisdictions waived, reduced or suspended
fees over a year ago, with no corresponding increase in new development.
To discuss impact fees, fiscal impact analysis, infrastructure financing plans, utility rates or
any of our other services, contact the leader: TischlerBise, at info@tischlerbise.com.
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43460 Ridge Park Dr. - Suite 200 W • Temecula, Ca 92590 • 951-719-8478 info@tischlerbise.com • www.tischlerbise.com
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7-6-1602. Calculation of impact fees -- documentation required -- ordinance or resolution --
requirements for impact fees. (1) For each public facility for which an impact fee is imposed, the
governmental entity shall prepare and approve documentation that:
(a) describes existing conditions of the facility;
(b) establishes level of service standards;
(c) forecasts future additional needs for service for a defined period of time;
(d) identifies capital improvements necessary to meet future needs for service;
(e) identifies those capital improvements needed for continued operation and maintenance of the
facility;
(f) makes a determination as to whether one service area or more than one service area is necessary to
establish a correlation between impact fees and benefits;
(g) makes a determination as to whether one service area or more than one service area for
transportation facilities is needed to establish a correlation between impact fees and benefits;
(h) establishes the methodology and time period over which the governmental entity will assign the
proportionate share of capital costs for expansion of the facility to provide service to new development
within each service area;
(i) establishes the methodology that the governmental entity will use to exclude operations and
maintenance costs and correction of existing deficiencies from the impact fee;
(j) establishes the amount of the impact fee that will be imposed for each unit of increased service
demand; and
(k) has a component of the budget of the governmental entity that:
(i) schedules construction of public facility capital improvements to serve projected growth;
(ii) projects costs of the capital improvements;
(iii) allocates collected impact fees for construction of the capital improvements; and
(iv) covers at least a 5-year period and is reviewed and updated at least every 2 years.
(2) The data sources and methodology supporting adoption and calculation of an impact fee must be
available to the public upon request.
(3) The amount of each impact fee imposed must be based upon the actual cost of public facility
expansion or improvements or reasonable estimates of the cost to be incurred by the governmental entity
as a result of new development. The calculation of each impact fee must be in accordance with generally
accepted accounting principles.
(4) The ordinance or resolution adopting the impact fee must include a time schedule for periodically
updating the documentation required under subsection (1).
(5) An impact fee must meet the following requirements:
(a) The amount of the impact fee must be reasonably related to and reasonably attributable to the
development's share of the cost of infrastructure improvements made necessary by the new
development.
(b) The impact fees imposed may not exceed a proportionate share of the costs incurred or to be
incurred by the governmental entity in accommodating the development. The following factors must be
considered in determining a proportionate share of public facilities capital improvements costs:
(i) the need for public facilities capital improvements required to serve new development; and
(ii) consideration of payments for system improvements reasonably anticipated to be made by or as a
result of the development in the form of user fees, debt service payments, taxes, and other available
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sources of funding the system improvements.
(c) Costs for correction of existing deficiencies in a public facility may not be included in the impact
fee.
(d) New development may not be held to a higher level of service than existing users unless there is a
mechanism in place for the existing users to make improvements to the existing system to match the
higher level of service.
(e) Impact fees may not include expenses for operations and maintenance of the facility.
History: En. Sec. 2, Ch. 299, L. 2005.
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