Road fees worry businesses

An avalanche of facts and opinions on road impact fees hit the Kalispell City Council on Monday - causing it to delay its discussion on the topic until Jan. 20.

Not an inkling of a consensus emerged from Monday's workshop session - other than most council members had plenty of questions and wanted to spend a lot more time talking about the issue.

"We've beaten this horse to death," council member Bob Hafferman said.

Twenty-six people, as well as the city's consultant and staff, voiced opinions on the proposed road impact fees during a Monday public hearing.

During the public hearing:

- Developer representatives said the current road impact fee proposals would indefinitely stall the huge Glacier Town Center project and likely would kill a project to build a Kohl's department store in Spring Prairie Center on U.S. 93.

- Construction representatives said that the hard-hit local construction industry needs a boost from new commercial and housing projects.

- Justin Sliter - an impact fee advisory committee member who was absent last week when the committee split 2-2 on recommending that the current fee study be adopted - said he would have voted to keep the proposal in the committee for more work.

Most of the 26 people speaking at the hearing represented big and small developers, the construction industry, some small businesses, the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors (which threatened a lawsuit if the current plan is adopted), the Flathead Business and Industry Association and the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce.

These interests opposed the current road impact proposal, arguing it is flawed legally and from a traffic-engineering standpoint, as well as being expensive in tough economic times.

"It's dollars and cents. It's too expensive," said Richard Filler, executive vice president of Chicago-based Harlem Irving Companies, which is working with Spring Prairie developer Mark Goldberg to set up a Kohl's in northern Kalispell. Filler said the current road impact fee plan likely would sink the Kohl's project.

"Impact fees will likely put our project on hold indefinitely," said local attorney Ken Kalvig, representing Wolford Development, which wants to build Glacier Town Center.

City Attorney Charles Harball, Public Works Director Jim Hansz and the impact fee committee's consultant, Randy Goff of HDR Engineering's Portland Office, said the legalities, traffic figures and fee calculations are solid and based on the best nationwide numbers and formulas.

Interim City Manager Myrt Webb said no evidence has surfaced that road impact fees have harmed economies in other towns.

For more on this story, read Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake.