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4 <br />Not surprisingly, there are widely divergent views about impact <br />fees among the organizational representatives we have spoken with. <br />Some of the key points that have been raised during our discussions <br />are listed below. <br />All of the representatives who reviewed the draft technical <br />report were favorably impressed with it and are'satisfied with <br />the methodology used. While the development community is not in favor <br />of impact fees, there was consensus about the importance to the <br />community of good schools and general acknowledgement that impact fees <br />may need to be considered as one element of the funding plan for those <br />schools. Discussion focused on ways to minimize the potential adverse <br />impacts on residential development by keeping the fees as low as <br />possible and making payment of the fees as easy as possible. <br />Suggestions were made that the fee be assessed late in the process, <br />perhaps at the point of issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy, to <br />limit the need for builders to finance the cost of the fees. Town <br />representatives, on the other hand, suggested collecting the fee <br />upfront, at issuance of building permits, as a better approach. The <br />schools' perspective is that the capital needs are well documented, so <br />it would be desirable to generate as much revenue as possible through <br />impact fees, while recognizing the existence of other considerations. <br />In view of those considerations, such as sensitivity to affordable <br />housing concerns and the potential deterrent to additional residential <br />development that could be created by excessive school impact fees, it <br />may be that the appropriate impact fee for single family residences <br />should fall in the range of $500 - $1,000. Our preliminary discussions <br />with municipal staff and development community representatives suggest <br />that higher fees would not be advisable. <br />As opposed to charging the maximum calculated impact fees, or <br />some percentage thereof, another approach to setting impact fees would <br />be to determine the amount of funding that should be generated by <br />impact fees, and based on projected growth rates, to set fees <br />accordingly. In Attachments 2A and 2B, Tables 24 and 25 have been <br />revised to determine the necessary set of impact fees that would be <br />required to generate $2 million for Chapel Hill- Carrboro and $1 <br />million for Orange County Schools (in accordance with the proposed <br />bond package). Under this scenario, the impact fee for a new single - <br />family home in the CHCCS district would be $512, and in the OCS <br />district, $363. <br />Attachments 3A and 3B reflect a similar scenario, wherein $1 million <br />in impact fees would be required for each of the new elementary <br />schools needed in CHCCS and OCS later during the 1992 -1998 planning <br />period. with a total of $3 million in impact fees necessary for <br />CHCCS, the required single - family impact fee in CHCCS district would <br />be $768. A total of $2 million in this scenario would be needed for <br />OCS, with the required OCS district impact fees for new single- family <br />residences at $727. <br />RB000416 <br />f <br />