COUNTY: Impact fees fact, fiction

Kootenai County's impact fees are not about new growth paying its fair share, and they never really were.

A common misconception about impact fees is that the existing homes have paid for the infrastructure of government, and new construction needs to buy into the system. In cities that is often the case. Property being annexed into a city has not helped pay for existing city infrastructure like the city police or fire stations. In the county it is quite different, as much of the expense of infrastructure as well as the yearly cost of providing services have actually been paid for by thousands of vacant lots.

A vacant lot generally pays far more in property tax every year than it uses in services. Unlike a home, the vacant lot creates a minimal burden on the system. Police are not often called to domestic disputes on bare property, children who attend school do not live on vacant lots, and EMS is rarely called to them to deal with a medical issue. Most undeveloped waterfront properties pay several times as much in property taxes as an average home. Is it justified to require a property that has paid far more than its fair share for 40 years to pay a "buy in fee" at the time a building permit is obtained? Clearly not, and no honest person could argue otherwise.

Additionally, every city in Kootenai County except Spirit Lake refuses to collect the county's impact fees, primarily because they have concerns about how far the law was bent or ignored in the county impact fee creation process. This results in the entire burden falling on the backs of the non-city residents who are still forced to pay the fee. It is like a school district passing a bond to build a new school, but requiring only people who live outside the city to pay for it.

The county impact fees were never really about growth paying for itself. That slogan was just a sound-bite used to sell the public on the concept. The real intent was to collect more money to buy things on the wish list. The present county commissioners chose to collect the fee from county residents, knowing that the cities were unwilling to collect it. Why would they do that?

LARRY SPENCER

Director

Idaho Property Owners Association