Agenda - 08-20-1996 - VIII-H - Laserfiche WebLink

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I 3 Habitat for Humanity I I Orange County,North Carolina,Inc. June 20, 1996 Moses Carey, Jr., Chairman Orange County Board of Commissioners P.O. Box 8181 Hillsborugh, NC 27278 Dear Mr. Carey: As you are aware, the Board of Commissioners recently increased the Impact Fee for a home built in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School District to $3,000. You and other Commissioners expressed concern about the effect this increase will have on the production of affordable housing. We share your concern, particularly since we plan to build five homes in Chapel Hill this Fall, all for families who earn less than fifty percent of the area median income. With impact fees of$3,000 per home, this will cost us (and the homebuyers) an additional $15,000. That figure represents a third of what it costs us to build one home. For Habitat and for the homebuyers we serve, paying an impact fee of $3,000 per home is a significant challenge. Over time, the Impact Fee will reduce the number of homes we are able to build, and thus the number of very low income households we are able to serve. Last November, the Commissioners passed an Impact Fee Reimbursement Policy that allows any non-profit organization that develops single family housing for first-time homebuyers with incomes below 80% of the area median to submit a request for reimbursement for impact fees paid. There was a pool of funds totaling approximately $13,000 designated for these reimbursements, to be used until the funds ran out. To date, Habitat has applied for $6,750 in reimbursements for impact fees on eight homes built or under construction during the 1995-96 fiscal year: We plan to complete at least eight more homes in the 1996-97 fiscal year, five of them in Chapel Hill. This will mean that Habitat will pay a total of$17,250 in impact fees in the upcoming fiscal year. Even if no other non- profit organizations apply for impact fee reimbursements, the original pool of funds is not adequate to reimburse Habitat for the fees we will pay in 1996-97. To our knowledge, once the original pool of funds is depleted, no new source of funds has been identified and designated for reimbursing impact fees under the policy adopted by the Commisioners last November. Especially in light of the recent hike in the fee for homes built in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, we feel that it is imperative that the Commissioners identify and designate a source of funds to reimburse impact fees under the policy they adopted last November. Producing decent, low cost housing that is affordable to very low 200 Davis Road ♦ Hillsborough, North Carolina 27278 ♦ 919-732-6767