Agenda - 03-10-1987 - Laserfiche WebLink

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31 RURAL BUFFER IMPLEMENTATION MEASURE MEASURES USED BY OTHER JURISDICTIONS Impact Fees Definition An impact fee is a fee imposed on a new development to finance a specific type of facility or improvement. This would include streets, parks, drainage facilities, public buildings, water and sewer facilities. It is essentially a means of shifting some of the cost of providing new or expanded facilities to the developments that create the need for the new or expanded facilities. Apia licAtion There are several basic features to establishing an impact fee system. 1. Linkage with comprehensive planning - The unit of government must be able to determine the total cost of improvements to facilities and services in its planning jurisdiction. Comprehensive plans and the planning process can demonstrate the need for improvements that will result from development and provide a basis for determining the cost of those improvements. 2. Defining facility service areas - A development must directly benefit from the facilities or services provided with the impact fee. Service area definition will assure that benefit linkage. 3. Assessing impact on existing facilities - An impact fee system cannot require new development to pay for existing capacity deficiencies. Impact fee systems should account for the need for new or expanded facilities that results from new develop- ment. 4. Measuring unit impact - A method of equitably allocating impacts to new development must be developed. 5. Pricing unit impacts - The unit price of impacts should be set so that the total amount collected in impact fees does not exceed the amount determined as the "fair share" of costs for a new or expanded facility that is to be paid by developments. Typically, impact fees finance only a portion of total cost.