San Luis council reviews draft impact fee increase for fire, parks, police, streets, water and wastewater

San Luis City Council members heard a presentation on a proposed update to the city’s impact fees at a March work session, with consultant Benjamin Griffin of Tischler Bice walking council through the land use assumptions, infrastructure improvements plan and draft fee schedules that cover fire, parks, police, streets, water and wastewater.

Griffin, identified himself as a senior fiscal economic analyst with Tischler Bice, and said the study uses a mix of incremental and plan-based methodologies to allocate costs tied to projected 10-year growth. He told the council the update would raise nonutility fees for a typical single-family home from about $38,100 under the current schedule to about $63,100 under the draft, and that the combined proposed fee (including water and sewer) for a single-family 3/4-inch meter would be roughly $91,000. Griffin said higher construction and equipment costs since the city’s 2019 study are the main drivers of the increases and noted timing requirements under Arizona law that constrain how and when fees can be adopted and spent.

The consultant said the study’s base year is 2024 and presented the draft land use assumptions and 10-year growth projections the team used to calculate demand. He described the fee components and key findings: fire fees reflect an increased level of service and much higher construction and apparatus costs since 2019, producing a proposed…