Council considers growth fee for road improvements

The Daily Inter Lake

The Kalispell City Council will discuss several infrastructure issues during a workshop tonight, including the possibility of developing cost-based fees to pay for road improvements and other growth-related needs.

Kalispell currently has a rate/fee structure in place to handle the ongoing maintenance and growth-related costs of its sewer and water system.

Its annual street assessment also covers the cost of maintaining the city's street system.

However, there are very few revenue sources to pay for capacity improvements to the street system. Consequently, Kalispell - like Flathead County and other rapidly growing jurisdictions around Montana - has struggled to keep pace with the increasing traffic needs of the community.

Over the last year, the council has discussed several options for addressing this, including the possibility of creating a municipal "street utility."

Similar to sewer or water utilities, a street utility would charge fees and user rates (i.e., the annual assessment) to pay for maintaining and upgrading the city street system.

Just as new development currently pays a connection fee to use the municipal water and sewer system - thereby providing the money needed to expand the system capacity - so new development would pay a connection fee to help replace the capacity it takes up on the city's street system.

"This could fund the majority of costs related to street maintenance and the eventual upgrading of roadways that becomes necessary over time because growth consumes the available roadway capacity," Public Works Director Jim Hansz wrote in a memo to the council.

Other items on tonight's workshop agenda include:

. A proposed developer's extension agreement with West View Estates, a 127-lot residential subdivision located at West Reserve Drive and Stillwater Road.

The council recently modified its extension-of-services policy to try to encourage developers to extend water and sewer lines long distances.

In this case, the cost of extending utilities from the new Lowe's Home Improvement to West View Estates is estimated at about $970,000. This agreement would allow the developer to be reimbursed for about 91 percent of that amount. As new subdivisions and projects connect to the lines, they would pay a special assessment based on the share of overall line capacity they required. This fee would go to the developer who installed the lines; the city would continue to collect its normal connection fee.

. Consideration of a "zoned" utility rate structure that would charge higher rates for areas that require multiple lift stations to transport sewage to the wastewater treatment plant.

Whitefish uses a zoned rate structure, while Kalispell spreads the costs evenly among all users. The city staff is recommending that the current system remain in force.

. A discussion of required right-of-way widths for city streets. The staff is recommending that the standard 60-foot right of way be left in place.

The workshop will take place in City Hall, beginning at 7 p.m. Information related to the above agenda items can be found on Kalispell's Web site at www.kalispell.com/mayor/agenda.cfm