County approves impact fees

COEUR d'ALENE - The Kootenai County commissioners voted unanimously on Thursday to pass the county's first impact fee ordinance, though they agreed much remains to be done with the measure.

"I don't want to keep extending this and not do anything," Commissioner Todd Tondee said during deliberations at the Kootenai County Administration Building. "Cities have valid issues to work out if they're going to collect the fees. I think we need to move forward in a manner that allows for all that to happen."

The ordinance creates development impact fees that will help taxing districts fund growth-related projects, like new stations for fire districts.

Fees will be collected for fire districts, EMS, highway districts and the county Parks and Waterways Department, sheriff's department and jail.

"I believe impact fees are an important part of growth paying for itself," Tondee said.

The commissioners recognized that local cities must still agree to collect the fees on taxing districts' behalf, which some municipalities haven't supported.

To give the districts and cities time to negotiate, the officials agreed to remove all fee calculations from the ordinance for now, and hold off on collection of fees for six months.

"I would like to see all of us sit down and work hard and put this behind us," said Commissioner Rich Piazza.

The officials said they would encourage districts to hold public hearings in the next six months on the proposed projects in their CIPs, or capital improvement plans.

Afterward, the county will amend the ordinance to include impact fee amounts.

"In my opinion, that six-month time frame will catch the next building season, and give folks time to work on those (CIPs)," Tondee said. "If we're not able to do it in six months, we may find out impact fees are not viable options for the county."

The county will hold a hearing soon on the CIPs for districts under its jurisdiction, the commissioners said.

Larry Clark, commissioner for the Northern Lakes Fire District, said he was pleased with the commissioners' decision.

"I think they're making a decision that is thorough, and they want to do it correctly," Clark said.

He is confident that after further negotiations, cities will agree to collect impact fees for his and other districts, he added.

"They realize the importance of districts to the cities," he said.

Marv Lekstrum, commissioner for the Lakes Highway District, said his district will definitely need the extra six months if it decides to ask cities to collect impact fees.

Meeting with the cities will take time, Lekstrum said, as will arranging public hearings.

"We work for the citizens. We owe it to them to have a public hearing on the CIPs," he said.

Lekstrum isn't confident that cities will agree to collect impact fees, he added.

"We will find out," he said. "I don't know what the key is."

Eric Keck, city administrator for Post Falls, said he would have preferred if the commissioners had waited to pass the ordinance until after cities agreed to collect the impact fees.

"We understand on the parts of the commissioners and the districts wanting to move ahead with impact fees," he said.

Keck has concerns about how the construction industry would be affected by the new fees, he said, especially since Post Falls already charges development fees of its own.

"We'll certainly sit at the table, but we can't guarantee we'll come to an agreement," Keck said of discussions with taxing districts. "Each district is entitled to make a request, but hopefully those are tempered by reality and meet the prescriptions of state statutes."

Brett Boyer, city administrator for Rathdrum, said the city hasn't decided if it will collect county impact fees.

The city hasn't been updated on proposed improvement projects since last year, he said.

"We were concerned with some of the items that were included in the CIPs, and the legality of the city collecting those," he said.

The city of Hayden doesn't have a stance on the issue, said City Administrator Stefan Chatwin.

"It isn't something the county has discussed with us," he said. "There's certainly a lot we would need to look at before we could make one decision or another."

County Attorney Pat Braden verified during Thursday's deliberations that rolling stock, or vehicles, does qualify to be funded by impact fees, which was questioned at a public hearing last week.

Some had also wondered if litigation over CIPs could end impact fees statewide, but Commissioner Rick Currie said Thursday that would be unlikely.

"The Legislature would be doing themselves a very big disservice if they were to do anything with impact fee legislation, from the voters' standpoint," Currie said. "I don't foresee any change in state issues there."