Whitefish studies $6,000 impact fee

Money would pay for new city buildings, bike trails.

By LYNNETTE HINTZE

The Daily Inter Lake

The impact fee for new construction in Whitefish should be about $6,000 per dwelling unit, a Washington consultant told the Whitefish City Council on Monday.

It's not as high as it seems, though, said Randy Young of Henderson, Young & Co. Whitefish already charges $3,146 in plant investment fees for sewer and water hookups, making the net increase for new impact fees about $2,800.

Whitefish's new impact-fee committee meets today to begin reviewing Young's proposal. The group will meet several times over the next month and should have recommendations for the council to vote on at the July 16 meeting.

Among the proposed impact fees are a $422 fee per dwelling for paved bike trails and a $739 fee for a new City Hall.

A new emergency-services facility would get a financial boost from a proposed $781 impact fee per dwelling. That compares to a Kalispell impact fee of $576 for emergency services.

New commercial construction would be charged for square footage, with a 36-cent-per-square foot fee for City Hall and 38 cents for emergency services. In Kalispell, the comparable impact fee is 25 cents per square foot for commercial construction, according to Young.

Streets weren't included in the impact-fee report because the city has a transportation study still under way.

Young reminded the council that impact fees may be charged only for capital costs, not maintenance. And there's no legal mechanism to capture impact fees for development outside city limits in the city's 2-mile planning area.

Proposed impact fees are intended to help offset a $51.6 million shortfall in planned capital improvements over the next five years.

For more details, see Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake.