INC NEWS - Council increases Impact Fees on New Construction

[Melissa Rooney]

I, for one, am very grateful to council for voting
with sincerity for the betterment of overburdened
South Durham, and with clear encouragement of
renovation (over new construction) in Downtown Durham.

Durham council approves impact fees:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/durham/durham/story/1005344.html

I have written them with my thanks :)

Melissa

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Durham council approves impact fees

HOW IT ADDS UP

The increased fees are projected to generate an
additional $1.7 million, bringing the total money
generated by impact fees to $5.1 million. The fees
help pay for parks, open space and street
improvements. 

There are different fees for the three city zones --
north, south and downtown. 

There are also different fees for certain kinds of
construction, such as single-family residential,
multifamily and retail space. 

For example, the current impact fee per single-family
unit is $817 in the north, $795 in the south and $157
downtown. 

The new fee will be $372 per unit in the north, $983
in the south and $205 downtown. 

The fees are lower in the north because the projected
impact of growth there is lower than in the south and
downtown. 

For more information, see the council agenda item at
durhamnc.gov/
agendas/2008/cm20080317/AttachmentsList.cfm#4804. 

Matt Dees, Staff Writer

DURHAM - Revised impact fees, payments made by
developers upon completion of new construction, were
approved Monday night on a 4-3 City Council vote. 
But only six of the seven council members were present
when the vote was taken. 

Council member Farad Ali cast the deciding vote in
absentia, because council rules state that any council
member who misses a meeting without being excused has
all his votes counted as yeas. Ali said he had to
leave for a personal matter, but he declined to say
what that was. He said he would have voted for the fee
changes had he been present. Starting July 1, fees
will go up for new construction in downtown and in
southern Durham, about 24 and 30 percent respectively.
Fees in northern Durham will drop by about 55 percent.


The fees help pay for streets, parks and open space. 
Mayor Bill Bell, council member Howard Clement III and
Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden were on the losing
end of the vote. 

Bell wanted to delay the vote until a public
discussion could take place about continuing efforts
to streamline the development review process. Staff
members said progress has been made. "I would have
preferred to have that type of message out there
before implementing fees," Bell said Tuesday. "It
would have just been better public relations." Bill
Kalkhof, president of Downtown Durham Inc., told the
council that a speedier review process was more
important than the fees. 

Nick Tennyson, executive vice president of the Home
Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham
Counties, agrees. "We think they could have held off,
and we wished they had," said Tennyson, a former
Durham mayor. With the economy slowing, he said, now
is not the time to increase the costs of building
homes. 

Neither Bell nor Tennyson said they were bothered that
Ali cast the deciding vote by default. As Bell said,
"It wasn't we weren't going to do it. It was just the
timing of when it was going to be done." 

Council member Diane Catotti said the council made
plenty of concessions to developers. She wished the
council had set the fees higher, and she noted that
the council also held off on approving a second
increase that would take effect next year. Catotti
called tying the impact fees to the development review
process "a red herring." "We're very committed to
moving the development review process forward," she
said. "I don't think that's a rationale for delaying
updating our impact fees. ... They have nothing to do
with the review process." 

Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees is meeting today with
developers to discuss changes to the process. 
He assured council members Monday night that efforts
are continuing to cut down on the amount of time it
takes to get a development reviewed, revised and
approved. Another discussion about that is planned for
April 3 at a council work session. 

matt.dees at newsobserver.com or (919) 956-2433



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