CDA council to consider impact fee rule amendments

COEUR d’ALENE — A public hearing on amendments that would affect impact fees in Coeur d'Alene is scheduled at 6 p.m. Tuesday before the Coeur d'Alene City Council in the Library Community Room. 

“Should the City Council adopt amendments to Title 14 of the Municipal Code, the Development Impact Fee Ordinance?” says a city report.

The move is a step toward raising impact fees to pay for future capital improvements.

The higher impact fees would be assessed on new houses, apartments, condos, hotels, assisted living and nursing homes, churches and commercial development. 

They would help pay for the Capital Improvements Plan to keep up with growth in the areas of fire, police, transportation and parks.

“Development impact fees are collected in order to ensure that new development bears a proportionate share of the cost of system improvements required to accommodate new development,” a city report states. 

 The city of Coeur d’Alene started collecting impact fees in 1993. They were last updated in 2004. 

Melissa Cleveland, Welch Comer senior project manager, is scheduled to give an update on the impact fees.

Of particular interest were the impact fees for parks, which were cited by some as too high.

Cleveland’s presentation is expected to include options that would reduce some of the impact fees originally outlined to the council.

In November, Bill Reagan, president of The Coeur d’Alene Resort, said there was no question the fees needed to go up. But he said he had a “little problem” with the substantial impact fees on new hotels to pay for parks and had little notice of them.

“I was totally caught off guard,” he said.

Mayor Jim Hammond said at that meeting the city’s three main waterfront parks, Atlas, McEuen and City Park are the ones used by visitors, and he pointed out impact fees can’t be used to pay for improvements to them.

“I don’t see how we can assess that level of impact to hotels,” Hammond said.

Parks Director Bill Greenwood said they could review the proposed impact fees for parks.

The amendments would clarify the exemptions to the development impact fees, how the fees will be collected, how the fees will be calculated, administration of the fees and the process for credits and reimbursements.

Public hearings are scheduled for Jan. 16 for adoption of the Capital Improvements Plan for Parks, Transportation, Police and Fire in support of the development impact fees, and adoption of the new fees, including adoption of the Development Impact Fee Study.