By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Socking new developments with hefty impact fees has surfaced in burgeoning suburbs as a proposed way to reduce the burden of growth on existing residents and to help shape desirable growth.

Warren County Commissioner Mike Kilburn, for example, advocates a $5,000 to $10,000 impact fee on all new homes and apartments before the state's second-fastest-growing county is overrun by sprawl.

He says there's growing support for the move, which would generate money to pay for new classroom space, and will continue pushing for state legislation that would govern impact fees, which have been upheld by the courts for Ohio cities.

"The residential growth in this county is killing our schools. My mom and dad are the people who have been pulling the wagon, building the schools all these years, and they should not have been the ones to build new schools for all the people coming in. The new growth should pay its own way," says Mr. Kilburn, who faces a re-election vote Tuesday after two decades in office.

Mr. Kilburn's opponent, however, Carolyn Tepe, is against impact fees, saying growth is inevitable and impact fees would restrict affordable housing in the suburbs.

Growth has meant suburban school districts have had to repeatedly go back to voters with new levies.

IMPACT FEE SAMPLES

City of Beavercreek, Ohio (Dayton suburb; population 37,980)   Transportation System Improvement Impact Fee: • Single-family home: $772 • Multifamily: $463 per unit • Commercial: $3,524 per 1,000 square feet • Office: $1,312 per 1,000 sq. feet Orange County, Fla. (Includes Orlando in central Florida; population: 896,344) Road Impact Fee: • Single-family home: $2,075 • Multifamily: $1,439 per unit • Mobile home park: $1,040 per unit • Retirement housing: $468 per unit • Hotel/motel: $1,762 • Auto sales, new cars: $3,440 • Offices: $3,734 to $8,339 • Warehouse: $1,238 per 1,000 sq. feet • Hospital: $3,271 per 1,000 sq. feet • Library: $3,271 per 1,000 sq. feet • School: $2,420 per 1,000 sq. feet Law Enforcement Impact Fee: • Single-family home: $70 • Multifamily unit: $136 • Mobile home: $136 • Commercial: $102 School Impact Fee: • Single-family home: $2,828 • Multifamily: $1,907 per unit • Mobile home park: $2,329 per unit Fire Impact Fee: • Single-family home: $148 • Multifamily: $124 per unit • Mobile home: $148 • Hotel/motel: $172 per room • Office: $229 per 1,000 sq. feet • Retail: $178 per 1,000 City of Brea, Calif. (Los Angeles suburb; population 36,857 Traffic Impact Fees: • Single-family home: From $693 to $5,693 • Multifamily unit: From $428 to $3,519 • Commercial: From $1.51 to $12.44 per 1,000 square feet Fire Impact Fees • All new residential uses: From $166 to $1,388 Police and Fire Dispatch Systems Impact Fee • All new residential uses: $132 Sources: Cities of Beavercreek, Brea, Calif., and Orange County, Fla.; U.S. Census.

In Warren, Mason Schools voters have approved or renewed nine levies and eight bond issues since 1967, rejecting two levies and three bond issues during that period. Little Miami Schools, asking voters again Tuesday to approve a levy rejected in May, have seen voters approve or renew 10 levies and two bond issues while rejecting 11 levies, one income tax proposal and four bond issues since 1975. There also have been frequent levies and bond issues in fast-growing Butler County districts such as Lakota and Fairfield.

In Clearcreek Township, Administrator Dennis Pickett says impact fees have also been discussed for roads to keep up with increased traffic demands in the northern Warren township of about 9,000 residents.

"Our growth has had a noticeable impact on the traffic," Mr. Pickett says. "This is a way for the tax structure to proportionately reflect the impact of new development so not everybody is required to share in the increased services, just people who are causing them created from new residential sites."

Homebuilders associations across the country, however, including Greater Cincinnati's and Northern Kentucky's, are vehemently opposed. A legal fight is almost guaranteed.

"It's wrong. It's almost a form of blackmail for lack of a better term," said Dan Dressman, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Northern Kentucky.

Mr. Dressman says he does not know of any movements afoot for impact fees in Kentucky.

"Why should the new homeowners be shouldered with paying for benefits the entire community is going to enjoy?" Mr. Dressman asks. "Impact fees are a form of poor planning in a community."

His counterpart, Terry Sievers, president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cincinnati, notes in his opposition to the fees that there is no state legislation governing them.

"There are no clear guidelines on what is fair, what's not, what it can be used for, what it can't be used for, none of those kinds of things," said Mr. Sievers, Midwest region president of the Drees Co. "We don't think there's any fairness in the issue and absolutely would challenge it legally."

What are impact fees?

Impact fees are payments required by local governments from new development for the purpose of providing new or expanded public capital facilities required to serve that development. They exist in 17 states, according to the American Planning Association.

The fees can be placed on commercial structures, and typically require cash payments in advance of the completion of a development. They are based on a methodology and calculation derived from the cost of the facility and the nature and size of the development.

The fees emerged two decades ago in high-growth Sun Belt coastal states such as Florida and California.

But now, local governments around the country are increasingly using impact fees to shift more of the costs of financing public facilities such as roads, schools and even libraries, according to the American Planning Association.

National planning experts say the fees should not be considered a panacea for the funding of general capital improvements, nor as the way to stop growth.

"They shouldn't pretend it's going to stop sprawl because there isn't a system in place doing this," says Stuart Meck, senior research fellow with the American Planning Association in Chicago.

Short-term solution?

But some residents who complain they are fed up with sitting on traffic-choked roads and constantly opening their wallets for school levies are advocating the fees.

Fairfield resident Stephen Barrett repeatedly has appeared before Fairfield City Council this year to push for the fees. He also has asked Butler County commissioners to look into it - though the fees are now legal only for Ohio cities to impose, at least until a case emerges as the precedent.

Developers and homebuilders, Mr. Barrett maintains, aren't held accountable for all the new homes and businesses they bring - and problems like traffic gridlock and overflowing classrooms.

Instead, the taxpayers get stuck with the bill, he says.

"You and I are more responsible for our actions than developers are," he continued.

"Developers take the money and run. There needs to be more public awareness about impact fees. It works in other communities. It's time."

Too late for impact fees?

Fairfield City Councilman Mark Scharringhausen says it's too late for impact fees in Fairfield, which has about 42,000 residents and is nearly built out residentially.

If Fairfield were a younger area with a booming population base such as Liberty Township, he reasons, impact fees might be feasible.

"If this was 20 years ago and we were just considering a growth curve, I would say it's something we need to look at," says Mr. Scharringhausen, chairman of the city's finance committee

Glen Brand, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, says impact fees should have been imposed years ago - in the early '80s when the north Cincinnati suburbs boom began. "Taxpayers should not be subsidizing profits of land speculators and land developers and that's what we have been doing for generations," Mr. Brand says. "Getting a handle on these taxpayer subsidies is a good first step toward fiscal responsibility and intelligent land use planning."

`The sticking point'

Mr. Meck, co-author of the 2002 Ohio Planning and Zoning Law, says the state Legislature should draft and pass rules governing impact fees before they catch on in Ohio. Otherwise, municipalities will have to formulate their own regulations as they go along, which will leave them open for legal attacks, he cautions.

"Builders can (complain) about impact fees, but municipalities in Ohio have the right to impose them," says Mr. Meck, a former assistant city manager and planning director in Butler County's Oxford. "What is not clear are the details of that right, and that's the sticking point."

State Rep. Tom Raga, R-Mason, says he is not a "big fan" of impact fees, but he says he has been assisting the Warren County commissioners as they push for the fees.

"Certainly we can write legislation and introduce it, but without working with all parties, it's not something that will pass," Mr. Raga says. "The homebuilders need to be a partner in this. For any type of impact fee legislation to be developed, it's going to take parties with some divergent interests to work together to craft something."

But Butler County Commissioner Mike Fox, a former 22-year state legislator who always is on the hunt for money for roads, doubts lawmakers will pass such legislation.

"It's nice to wave the banner and flap about it, but at the end of the day, it's not likely," Mr. Fox says. "You are going to get a strong alliance against it and very few organized groups speaking in favor of it. I never say never, but in the foreseeable future, I don't see that getting the light of day."

Sue Kiesewetter contributed to this report.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com.