Proposal would nix sewer fees within RDA area and traffic
fees
Morgan Hill – City council members voted 4-0 Wednesday night to further consider a plan to lower developer impact fees and pay for some infrastructure improvements with Redevelopment Agency funds.
Councilmember Marby Lee was not present for the vote.
Impact fees are paid by property developers to pay for town facilities and services such as schools, parks and roads. The council is considering lowering traffic and sewer impact fees.
“These are the kinds of things that city governments do best,” Councilmember Larry Carr said. “I’m eager to get this going.”
According to Garrett Toy, business assistance and housing services director, the proposal eliminates the sewer impact fees for development within the RDA project area and decreases the traffic impact fees citywide by approximately 56 percent.
Currently, developers must pay approximately $30 per gallon per day in sewer impact fees and approximately $3,100 for traffic impact, though commercial and residential developments are figured differently, residential by the unit and commercial with a coefficient based on square footage.
Toy told council members that the proposed reductions could pull approximately $37 million from the RDA funds for traffic improvements and approximately $20 million for sewer improvements.
Morgan Hill Planning Commission member Ralph Lyle, who asked several questions during the meeting Wednesday night, said Thursday that he didn’t want to say whether or not the proposal has his support until he has more information.
“It’s too early to make a judgment at this point,” he said. “I agree with the concept, but I’d like to understand it a little better.”
His main concern, Lyle said, is that “the piece on the traffic impact fees is based on old data, and I don’t think they’ll have a lot of new data in January.”
City Manager Ed Tewes said it was 2002 when the list of RDA projects was created, and the projects have not been engineered, the numbers are estimates. However, he said, the council spent a year discussing the projects and came up with a policy that placed emphasis on improving the city’s infrastructure and decreasing impact fees.
This proposal would be in line with that policy, he said.
The city’s general plan includes projects that would impact the city’s infrastructure – traffic and sewers – so the city needed to address a way to pay for the necessary improvements.
“The irony is that the fee system established to pay for those plans is acting as a disincentive and actually slowing down our ability to complete those plans,” Tewes said Thursday.
Carr emphasized other benefits of the proposal in addition to development.
“This is a real positive thing for a lot of reasons, one is that it would improve the infrastructure in our community for those of us who live here today,” he said. “It would be a huge benefit for those who live here today, not just for future development.”
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@mo*************.com.
