SIERRA VISTA HERALD: Sun., Jan. 29, 2006
Opinion: Impact fees necessary for Sierra Vista's future
Sierra Vista is growing. You can see it as you drive from one end of the city to another.
Homes are being built. New businesses are coming into town. Some national merchandisers are coming that eye only cities with bigger populations or with a regional shopping potential.
Sierra Vista is a good place to live, and people are discovering that.
With the growth comes the time to think differently. We must change to accommodate growth. We must change to help pay for the necessary services that residents will need.
Sierra Vista will continue to attract new residential proposals. It will likely attract new businesses that'll want to have a place in the marketplace.
This is on top of the people and businesses already here.
The Sierra Vista City Council is considering an impact fee proposal that has been in discussion for some time. The council is set to vote on it in February. It is a plan with two purposes. One is to pay for services that will continue with an expected quality of life for Sierra Vistans. The other is to shore up the city's state-shared revenues that continue to decrease as the Phoenix metropolitan area grows at a faster rate and takes a bigger piece of the state's revenue pie.
Both of these reasons start the wheels on the road to raising the money locally to pay for services.
We approve of using impact fees as a revenue stream to pay for needed infrastructure and added services. Newcomers bring the need for more fire stations, police equipment, wider roads, more library services, better parks and the like.
However, we don't fully agree with the fee amounts proposed. While the city commissioned a formal study, we're more comfortable with the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association's estimates. The outside contractor's analysis was not as well done as we would have hoped. It misjudged needed revenue in some areas, and under-predicted growth in others.
Regarding the impact fee estimates, the city has adjusted some of its fee numbers after receiving estimates from SAHBA, which has a local chapter — the Southeastern Arizona Contractors Association — working with it.
In the original proposal, a single family residence would have had a $6,200 impact fee assessed. SAHBA, after doing its own study, which it made public and has given to the city, had an estimated fee of about $4,700 a home. SAHBA would like no fees, but it understands why they are a fact of life and isn't speaking out against an impact fee plan. It was trying to be proactive in presenting an alternative proposal.
In the end, the city reconfigured some of its numbers after reviewing SAHBA's report, and the current proposal now is at $5,782 per residence.
This fee includes paying for park, fire, police, library and road impacts.
As far as the commercial fees, we believe they need to be delayed until January 2007, as that fee structure as originally proposed was based on what we believe is too low of an estimate of what kind of business growth will actually occur.
Delaying gives the city time to make sure businesspeople know that these are going to go into effect. This gives them a little less than a year reprieve to get their commercial projects formulated under the current rules, or prepare for the new ones. It also would give time for some new data to be reviewed and possibly more input from a business community.
Finally, since we're talking about growth and impacts, what more important issue can there be than water use? There is no larger overriding factor regarding growth than the management of water in our desert community.
We are amazed there is no water conservation component that could be funded by impact fees.
Impact fee revenue could be focused on water-conservation improvement projects by the city government, which could include improvements to the city's Environmental Operations Park, or to pay for a new recharge facility to support developments such as Castle & Cooke's proposed Tribute.
This area's leaders continue to work on water issues. These funds would help make projects come to a reality, as well as help the city be at the political forefront on water conservation issues.
State law says impact fees must be used for the projects that they would be dedicated for.
At this point, they would be used for parks, the library, the Fire Department, the Police Department and roads. Water should be a component in this, too.
Impact fees are necessary and are a part of the overall revenue stream that the city must look at to provide services for the public good as our city grows.
Impact fees put some of the onus on those new to the city and spurring further growth to help pay for some of the demands they are creating. New neighborhoods mean new parks, new police and fire stations and new roads.
This isn't about killing growth in a city. It's about making sure those who are creating additional costs are paying a share of it.
Those who are creating greater water use also should play a role in helping to pay for ways to mitigate that usage.
These fees are the price of a city growing up, keeping its quality of life and securing its future.