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Council backs charter amendment to allow impact fees, urges wider legislative push
Summary
Gallatin’s council unanimously approved a second-reading ordinance asking to add impact-fee authority to the city charter and council members discussed pursuing a broader, statewide solution for municipal impact fees.
The Gallatin City Council on Jan. 7 approved a second-reading ordinance amending the city charter to add the power for the city to levy impact fees on new development.
The ordinance — described by proponents as the first step to give Gallatin a tool to offset the costs of growth — passed on second reading with no recorded opposition. Council members and staff, however, acknowledged that state law and prior legislative history make securing practical impact-fee authority complicated and urged a coordinated approach with other cities and the Municipal League.
Mayor Paige Brown framed the item as a fairness issue. “Even the city of Nashville cannot have impact fees, but Franklin can because they got a special exception,” Brown said, arguing the city should push for a change that would let all cities use impact fees equitably. Council members raised two practical points: first, the city must pay for a technical study to calculate appropriate fees and allowable uses; second, previous attempts at legislation have stalled in the state Local Government Committee.
Councilmember Schuetz (spelling in transcript) said he could share a completed impact-fee study from another city to show how the technical work is structured, and urged members to coordinate with the city’s state legislators and the Tennessee Municipal League. Representative and senator contacts (Senator Hale and Representative Slater were mentioned by speakers) were discussed as potential legislative allies, and the mayor said that the most persuasive path may be a broad, multi-city request so the legislature treats the issue uniformly for municipalities.
Why it matters: Impact fees, if permitted and carefully structured, allow municipalities to charge new development for its share of infrastructure costs (roads, parks, drainage, schools in some states) rather than placing all costs on existing taxpayers. The council approved placing Gallatin’s request into the charter as a local policy signal; additional technical steps and state-level action would be required before the city could implement fees.
What next: City staff and council discussed commissioning the technical impact-fee study (an added cost), contacting state legislators to secure committee sponsorship, and coordinating with other cities through the Municipal League. The ordinance passed unanimously on second reading and will move forward as the city’s formal request for authority to create an impact-fee program.
