IMPACT FEES DISCUSSED DURING BRENHAM CITY COUNCIL, PLANNING & ZONING WORKSHOP
Brenham City Councilmembers and Planning and Zoning Commissioners met Tuesday evening for a workshop to discuss impact fees for capital improvements, infrastructure and facilities.
Ryan Tinsley and Kelly Hajek of Strand Associates gave a presentation on how impact fees imposed on developers can be used to recoup capital improvement costs and walked through the process of adopting an impact fee ordinance.
A variety of Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) projects are eligible for impact fees, including facilities for water supply, treatment and distribution; wastewater collection and treatment; stormwater, drainage and flood control; and roadways.
Tinsley said for many years, impact fees were viewed as deterrents to new development, but that is no longer the case.
When asked what the average impact fee would look like for a town Brenham’s size, Hajek said a standard residential water connection could range anywhere from $1,500 to $8,000. She said the cost ultimately depends on what is in place in the city’s CIP, which identifies projects and project costs necessary to handle a community’s projected level of growth over the next 10 years.
If the city decides to pursue implementing impact fees, the first step is to form a Capital Improvement Advisory Committee. The committee would be tasked with recommending land use assumptions to the city council, reviewing and monitoring a CIP, and filing semi-annual CIP progress reports. The committee must have at least five members, and no fewer than two must be representatives from real estate, development or building industries and cannot be city employees or officials.
Next, the city would prepare a draft Land Use Assumptions (LUA) map and population projections, incorporating comments from the committee into them. A CIP would then be drafted and presented to the committee before preparing impact fees. After that, the committee would make a formal recommendation to the city council to approve the LUA map, population projections, CIP and maximum assessable impact fees. Following a public hearing, the council could then adopt either the maximum assessable impact fee or a lower impact fee.
Depending on how the city wants to approach the process, it could take between four months and around a year to complete.
Call it what it is. Another burdensome tax on those who want a home or to grow a business
“When asked what the average impact fee would look like for a town Brenham’s size, Hajek said a standard residential water connection could range anywhere from $1,500 to $8,000.” Has the City of Brenham lost it’s collective mind!!! The size of those fees is INSANE! A water connection that costs between $1,500-$8,000. What will they start trying to charge for the other services? How do they expect citizens to afford this on top of our already high taxes and fees. This is not River Oaks! The fancy suits sitting in their plush city hall offices seems to have forgotten what it means to be a regular person with a budget and bills to pay. The city is not a “for profit” business, it is here to SERVE the citizens of Brenham. This is outrageous and they need to shove this idea in a deep dark hole and bury it! Our citizens should be outraged! City Council, are you here for the citizens who elected you or do you just allow the suits to lead you around by the nose? It seems like people get elected and they forget who put them there. I have had enough of this nonsense!
These fees are paid by developers so we, the taxpayers, do not have to pay for all of the infrastructure for their new subdivisions and shopping centers. Impact fees offset the City’s investment in that infrastructure. They are not paid directly by the homeowner, although it is typical for a builder to pass that fee along in the home price. The City of Brenham is far behind most Texas cities in implementing these fees.
Thank you for that clarification. Again, impact fees are collected from the developer to offset the costs to the city to extend services to new homes. This saves taxpayer dollars. If the cost to the developer is passed along to the homeowner, it is only to new homeowners, not to existing residents.
Developers don’t care about impact fees because they’ll just reduce their bids on raw land to make up the difference. The big landowners in town are the ones that are going to eat this.
You are halfway correct Tom. The problem people may have with this is that the City is trying to say they need to raise rates to offset this “new growth” or whatever fancy word they want to use this week while simultaneously saying they need to charge the developers as well.
I agree let’s increase these fees some but let’s reduce the monthly minimums and rates to the current customers and live within our means.
My brother is a commercial builder and he agrees that the fees are absorbed by the entity building the facility, not by existing users………think more of a user’s tax. So if you are in an existing house or business and another 100 house housing project comes up you are not paying for that with your taxs.