Public hearing tonight

Road-impact fees

The battle over Kalispell's proposed road-impact fees is entering the end-game stage.

Today, the City Council has scheduled a 7 p.m. public hearing - probably the last of several - on the proposed fees.

On March 9, the council expects to discuss and then vote on one of three scenarios for the road-impact fees.

The scenarios are:

n Adopting the fees as presented in a consultant's study.

n Exempting a project that has had a preliminary plat approved between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2009, for six years after the approval date. Preliminary plats were granted after July 1, 2004, to Glacier Town Center's main outdoor shopping complex, Hutton Ranch Plaza, Spring Prairie Center and 1,645 homes that include northern Kalispell's Silverbrook Estates project.

n Charging only 75 percent of the proposed impact fees for any developer who applies for a building permit by April 1, 2011.

A clear majority of the council has not appeared to favor any of the scenarios.

About the only sure thing about the March 9 vote is that most council members appear satisfied with how traffic-volume figures were calculated.

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.

The proposed road-impact fees are 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 $928. But high-traffic projects - such as Glacier Town Center and its planned centerpiece 550,000-square-foot outdoor shopping center - can expect to pay millions.

It appears likely that the council will trim some of the proposed fees.

A probable way would be to cut a $12.4 million, 10-project list of street upgrades for which the road-impact fees are supposed to pay.

One scenario would trim $6.1 million, reducing the fees by 49 percent.

The removed projects would be: upgrading parts of Three Mile Drive and Four Mile Drive, extending Grandview Drive to Whitefish Stage Road, extending 18th Street, and upgrading Seventh Avenue East North where it connects to Whitefish Stage Road.

Left on the list would be: extending Rose Crossing from Whitefish Stage Road to Farm-To-Market Road, plus upgrading parts of Four Mile Drive, Stillwater Road, West Springcreek Road and Two Mile Drive.

A second scenario would remove the Rose Crossing project as well - reducing the impact fees by 65 percent.

The Grandview Drive extension appeared the least popular among the council members because it would include building a bridge across the Stillwater River, which the council thinks is unlikely.

The leaders of the opposition against the proposed road-impact fees are the north side's three biggest developers -Bucky and Chad Wolford with Glacier Town Center, Mark Goldberg with the Spring Prairie shopping complex, and Philip Harris with Hutton Ranch Plaza.

The Wolfords and Harris are against all road-impact fees. Harris wrote a Feb. 25 letter to the council opposing any fees, which is a stronger stance from his previous position of accepting smaller fees that he thought were reasonable.

Goldberg wants the road-impact fees put on hold until the Kalispell economy renews its growth of the past few years - growth that stalled significantly in 2008. As a second choice, Goldberg proposed a five-year "grandfather" period for the fees, he wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to the council.

Hovering about the issue is the possibility that lawsuits might be filed to challenge Kalispell's right to impose impact fees or how the city calculated the fees.

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