It's wrong time for impact fees

Inter Lake editorial

Everyone says it's time to put politics aside. Unemployment is up, construction is down and the future is uncertain, so we need to work together to turn things around.

We hope that message gets through to Kalispell City Council members on Monday night when they cast their votes on road impact fees.

Because no matter what kind of political leanings you have, there's no doubt that implementing road impact fees may drastically impede construction, growth and jobs in Kalispell at a time when they are desperately needed.

The idea of impact fees is not unreasonable on the surface - force developers to pay money up front to compensate for the increased use of city services and infrastructure caused by growth. And if there were a bunch of developers fighting to build in Kalispell, we might be making the case for going ahead with the fees.

But times are tough. There is no guarantee ANY major project will be built in Kalispell in the next two or three years. And anything which puts up a roadblock to construction is not in the best interests of Kalispell or its citizens. After all, you can't charge any fees at all if there is no construction.

What we would like to see the City Council do at its next workshop is start to think about economic development instead of economic roadblocks. Just what steps will Kalispell take to make it easier for development to take place? How will the council and mayor work with potential employers to entice them to build here?

By taking impact fees off the table, the City Council can send a message that Kalispell is friendly to development and growth, and realistic about the value of new business to our economy.

Reemember, it's growth that will ultimately fund city services, not impact fees. If Wolford Development had been able to build its Glacier Mall five years ago, the city and county would have collected several millions of dollars in taxes by now, and unlike impact fees those tax payments would be ongoing and could pay for continuing services.

Besides, as Councilman Bob Hafferman has pointed out, developers already pay for the impact of their projects in other ways. Wolford, for instance, has previously agreed to pay $4 million or more for road extensions and reconstruction. And most of the impact fees that the city proposes to charge would be spent on roads that have no direct link to the project being taxed. It just makes no sense.

We know there's been some talk of scaling back the proposed impact fees, but that's not enough. This is the wrong time for any new fees. Just wait until unemployment is back under 5 percent, when credit is readily available, and when construction -the foundation of a robust local economy - comes back to life.

This plan is too flawed and the timing is too poor to implement fees at this time.