An overhaul of impact fees
– the money the city charges commercial, housing and industrial
builders for the
”
impacts
”
their projects create on our community
– will soon come before the City Council.
An overhaul of impact fees – the money the city charges commercial, housing and industrial builders for the “impacts” their projects create on our community – will soon come before the City Council.
The city administration is proposing substantial across-the-board raises in impact fees and recommending a sea change in the way the city does business. Under the current system, Gilroy charges a certain amount for police impacts, a certain amount for recreation, etc. The city wants to lump a number of those sums together, essentially as general impact fees, and have the Council prioritize the current needs.
That’s certainly a flexible approach, but it severs the direct link to accountability.
How does one challenge a proposal for a higher police impact fee when it’s lumped together with seven other fees? It certainly can’t easily be broken down, examined and critically assessed. The method is an open invitation for irresponsible government that would be cast in concrete for years to come. It’s a bad idea that the Council should quash directly.
After making that initial decision clear, the Council should go through the proposed fees one by one and force the city administration to defend each with empirical evidence. Raising impact fees just doesn’t cut into builder profits, it hits every home buyer and every new business venture in the pocketbook.
The proposed traffic impact fees for commercial and industrial projects are a cas e in point. The increase would more than double the current fee. That’s a number Bill Lindsteadt, the city’s economic development director, says will virtually halt industrial and commercial projects in Gilroy. That may be an overstatement, but the Council should listen carefully to what Lindsteadt and developers like
Joe McCarthy, who wants to build an industrial complex in Gilroy east of U.S. 101, have to say.
Perhaps more importantly, the Council should go through the methodology that the city staff used to arrive at the impact fee figure. Is it realistic? Does the fee make sense?
Casting the city’s impact fees in concrete for the next decade or two is serious business. This is a case where micromanaging by the City Council is not only called for, it’s demanded by the responsibility associated with the job.
