Letters regarding position of impact fee - VII-A - 3-21-95

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PTA Council of Chapel Hill-Carrboro POSITION ON THE IMPACT FEE Growth in the school district over the last few years has put enormous strain on the facilities of the school system, that has resulted in severe overcrowding in every school in the district except for one. The idea behind impact fees is to have new residents with school age children pay a larger share of the cost of adding new educational facilities than existing residents since the new residents are "requiring" the need for the new facilities. Impact fees have been deemed as a fair way of apportioning the high costs of new public facilities caused by new residential growth. Impact fee ordinances have been adopted in hundreds of communities throughout the United States and have served as a necessary source of revenue to accommodate growth without adding to the tax levels of existing residents. The present impact fee is $750 per dwelling unit throughout the county. The PTA Council supports raising this fee to an average of of at least $1500 per dwelling unit, but allowing for effective exemption of units built for low-income residents so as to not inhibit the availablility of affordable housing. One way to accomplish this is to fix the fee to the size of the house (in square feet). Tying the fee to the size of the unit would be consistent with the requirement that the magnitude of the fee be related to the impact, since there is a significant relationship between size of unit and number of school age children. But there are other ways to achieve the same results. The present fee, on average, is low compared to most impact fees nationwide. The impact fee for a $150,000 home, for example, is one-half of one percent of the sale price. For homes at this price level, i.e., around the median, and higher, there is very little likelihood that the additional cost has resulted in a drop off in demand for new houses in the county. If the impact fee were an economic burden, we would have seen a drop off in residential property values by the amount of $750, which has not occured. The PTA Council strongly supports increasing the average impact fee in order to pay for the severe capital facility needs facing the schools in the county brought on by high residential growth rates. The schools are literally bursting at the seams, and we need vision and leadership by our elected officials, not government as usual. Even a doubling of the average fee will likely have no negative impact on new housing demand for average and above average priced houses. An impact fee is a fair way to apportion the costs of new residential growth, and it can be implemented so as to not sacrifice the goal of having more affordable housing available in Orange County. Approved unanimously March 15, 1995