IMPACT FEES: Further thoughts

Regarding Impact Fees: Thank you for doing some explanation of the fees charged by various municipalities in North Idaho. In addition to that info I’d add:

1) None of the Municipalities has the right to enact an impact fee for School Facilities despite the fact that growth would, in most cases, make new schools necessary. State law prohibits school impact fees. The first step to allow an impact fee is to change state law to enable such fees to be considered. Perhaps if citizens wrote to the Legislature to ask for an impact fee to be allowed?

2) Affordable housing was mentioned as a problem. To my knowledge is no mechanism in Idaho by which a municipality can require houses to be sold a “reduced” price by “waiving” fees and if they could, who is to say investors wouldn’t purchase them all? Making all the lots smaller does not make homeownership easier, it just makes the raw land worth more because more homes can be built on it.

ROBERT BURNS

Post Falls