|
At its June 17 public hearing on impact fees, the county commission approved two ordinances that had been proposed concerning impact fees by a two to one vote. This was in spite of an overwhelming majority that testified expressing their displeasure at the prospect.
Commissioners Chris Endresen and Patty Lent voted to increase the fees while Commissioner Jan Angel kept her long-held promise to vote against any increase. Impact fees were authorized under the state’s Growth Management Act (GMA) to deal with the impact of new construction on schools, parks, and roads.
The issue is a contentious one between builders and environmentalists, but both groups agree on one thing,: the the fees are an obstruction to new housing.
When campaigning for election, Lent promised on numerous occasions that she would vote against any ordinance that increased the amount of impact fees assessed on new homes, saying she believed them to be arbitrary, discriminatory and unfair. She gave no reason for breaking that promise. Endresen has stated many times she favors steep increases in the amount of impact fess currently being assessed.
The first ordinance will take effect in January 2004 and provides for the administrative process of collecting the fees at the time a Certificate of Occupancy is issued. Kitsap County will become the only jurisdiction in the state to collect the fees at occupancy. Up until now, they have been assessed at the time the building permit is issued. This particular change has been an important goal of the Home Builders Association of Kitsap County (HBA) for several years.
The second ordinance, which is the actual increase in the fees, was also scheduled to take effect in January, 2004, but was moved back to July of next year so efforts can made by the commissioners, the HBA and others to see if a more equitable and broad-based revenue stream — in lieu of impact fees — can be found and approved in Olympia next year.
Lent has promised to lobby other county officials statewide to campaign for an increase in the Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) to replace impact fees. However, this approach has been tried almost every year since the GMA was first implemented and been successfully blocked by the Washington Association of Realtors. There is no reason to believe that will change, and incoming Kitsap County Association of Realtors (KCAR) President Frank Mahaffey testified against such an approach at the hearing.
The ordinance calls for phased, annual increases (2004 through 2007) and specifies how much park, road and school district amounts will be each year. There is one amount countywide for parks and different amounts for each of four transportation districts and the school districts.
The motion to approve both ordinances, including the change in implementation to July 2004, was also approved by Lent and Endresen, with Angel voting no.
If the increases specified in the approved ordinance are implemented, it will result in about a 20 percent per year increase through 2007. State and county regulations already add approximately 23 percent to the price of a new home. In Kitsap County, (not including Bainbridge Island) where the average price of a home exceeds $183,000, that amounts to around $43,000 of additional cost.
The new ordinance when implemented will increase that by a low of about $3,500 in Bremerton and South Kitsap to a high of $5,100 in North Kitsap. This is over and above the current amounts being assessed already. Full implementation will result in a doubling of current impact fees on average, with the largest increases in the North Kitsap School District and Central Kitsap. | 
