Road fees may stop store plans

By JOHN STANG/Daily Inter Lake

Ventures to build new Wal-Mart, Kohl's and PetSmart stores in Kalispell may not materialize if the city adopts road impact fees as currently proposed.

Wal-Mart is looking to build a new store in Hutton Ranch Plaza.

A Kohl's department store, PetSmart and a third unidentified store are planned for the northern portion of Spring Prairie Center on U.S. 93.

"If you pass it, my project doesn't move forward," Spring Prairie developer Mark Goldberg told the Kalispell City Council at a Monday workshop session.

"This potential impact fee stands in the way of our company reaching an agreement with Mr. Goldberg," said Richard Filler, executive vice president of Chicago-based Harlem Irving Companies.

Harlem Irving is looking at putting Kohl's, PetSmart and a third store in Spring Prairie Center.

Last week, the council granted a one-year extension to Nov. 30, 2009, of the preliminary plat for the northern phase of Spring Prairie Center. That preliminary plat is two years old, and Goldberg had not applied for a final plat - signifying a locked-in project - by that two-year deadline.

Scott Hagel, an attorney representing Wal-Mart, said the corporate giant is concerned about the proposed transportation impact fees and wants a phased-in approach to the process.

"With the state of the economy, major retailers are closing stores and not opening planned stores," he said.

Council members gave mixed signals Monday on whether they are ready to act on recommendations earlier proposed by the city's impact fee advisory committee.

Some council members wanted to examine the issue one piece at a time - first voting on whether to adopt a traffic study and then tackling the fees and implementing them.

Others wanted to address all the issue's individual segments at once.

A pivotal point of contention is how a state-produced traffic estimate used in the impact fee study was reached.

The study, using Montana Department of Transportation figures, calculated that Kalispell should produce an extra 142,031 vehicle trips a day by 2020. But the state won't say how it arrived at those figures.

Consequently, the city staff and some developer representatives are trying to pry that data from the state - arguing that it is public information.

"I'm not sure if anyone really has a problem with where the number comes from. What they have a problems with is the dollar amount" for many road impact fees for commercial buildings, council member Jim Atkinson said.

However, Mayor Pam Kennedy said: "The council also needs to look at the serious economic times we're in now."

She said the road impact fees should be phased in with breaks granted to developers who submitted preliminary plats based on budgets before the fees issue surfaced.

Council member Bob Hafferman contended the fees should be cut to one-third of the present recommendations. He said the present ones would discourage construction in Kalispell.

Atkinson countered: "If the developers pay only one-third [of the road costs to serve their ventures], who's going to pay for the other two-thirds - the taxpayers?"

An impact fee is a one-time charge on a new home or commercial building that is built in or annexed into Kalispell. Its purpose is to help the city pay the extra capital costs of serving that structure.

Kalispell already has police, fire, water, sewer and drainage impact fees.

The proposed road impact fees have become controversial because new buildings would be assessed fees depending upon the amount of traffic they are expected to create.

The impact fee on a new single-family home would be $729. But business projects likely to create lots of traffic - such as the proposed Glacier Town Center and its 577,000-square-foot shopping center - can expect to pay much larger amounts.

These proposed fees have been debated and studied for about two years.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com