Georgetown council hears consultant briefing on proposed development impact fees

Georgetown City Council received an overview of proposed development impact fees from a consultant during a regular council meeting. The consultant, Ben, described how the one-time fees would be calculated, what capital costs they could fund and the proposed next steps for stakeholder outreach and ordinance adoption.

The consultant said impact fees are “one-time payments, generally collected at the time of the building permit, to fund that new development’s proportionate share of capital costs,” and explained that fees can fund new capital items — for example, police vehicles, portions of water and wastewater capacity and municipal facility expansions — but cannot be used for operations, maintenance or replacement.

The presentation laid out three general fee methodologies — cost recovery, incremental expansion and plan-based — and explained which approach the study used for each service. Most non-utility components (fire, police, apparatus and equipment) use an incremental methodology tied to maintaining the existing level of service; the municipal facilities component (the proposed city hall expansion) is treated as a plan-based allocation. For utilities, the consultant proposed fees tied to average-day gallons for water and wastewater and noted separate wastewater treatment service-area schedules where only Treatment Plant 1 would be charged for a planned treatment-plant expansion.

Why it matters: the fees are meant to shift the capital cost burden for new infrastructure onto new development rather than the city’s general fund or existing taxpayers. Council members repeatedly raised affordability concerns and questions about credits, timing and the administrative details of implementation.

Major figures and examples from the presentation included: - Fire: projected 10-year needs of roughly 4,300 additional square feet of fire facilities (estimated cost about $4.1 million), nearly one unit of apparatus (about $800,000) and communications/equipment (about $190,000). Projected fee revenue if growth proceeds as forecast: about $5 million. - Police: about 6,400 square feet of facilities ($3.2 million), roughly 3.5 city-owned vehicles and equipment (about $200,000); projected fee revenue about $3.5 million. - Municipal facilities: a plan-based city hall expansion cost estimated at $12.5 million; the study allocates about $2.5 million of that cost to future development over 10 years with the remaining $10 million shown as the existing development share, subject to credits if the city issues debt or uses other revenue to retire bonded debt. - Water: a proposed cost per gallon calculation (presented as $6.09 per gallon in the consultant’s slides) tied to average-day demand; example single-family water impact estimate shown at roughly $2,400 per unit (based on the demand assumptions in the water/sewer availability application). - Wastewater: Treatment Plant 1 expansion presented as a growth-related cost of about $29.3 million to add approximately 4.5 million gallons of capacity; the consultant reported a proposed charge of about $6.51 per average-day gallon for Treatment Plant 1 and estimated roughly $10.1 million in impact-fee revenue from Plant 1’s projected growth over 10 years. Units connecting to Treatment Plants 2 or 3 would not be charged the treatment-expansion component; their fees would be substantially lower and limited to equipment/facilities components.

Council members asked whether credits or negotiated waivers (for example, for affordable housing contributions) were possible; the consultant replied that credits can be provided but the fee fund must be made whole by another revenue source if fees are waived for certain projects. He also explained that many jurisdictions use size-based residential fee breaks (smaller units pay less because they generate fewer people and therefore less demand) and that grandfathering rules for phased projects or permits issued near an effective date are administrative choices for the city to define.

Several council members expressed support for moving the process forward while emphasizing the need to balance housing affordability with the city’s need to secure capital funding for growth. One councilmember said the fee approach places the cost on those building new projects rather than shifting the burden to existing residents through general taxation.

Next steps discussed at the meeting included stakeholder outreach, an introductory presentation to the public and drafting an ordinance that would require two readings for adoption. Staff cautioned that drafting a defensible ordinance and associated legal review would require time; the council discussed timing for an introduction and the first reading at upcoming meetings but did not adopt the ordinance that night.

Votes and formal actions from this session were limited to routine business. At the start of the meeting the council approved minutes from the previous meeting; no vote was taken to adopt the impact-fee study or an ordinance during this session.

The council directed staff to proceed with stakeholder engagement and ordinance drafting, with additional public education and legal review before formal readings of any ordinance. The consultant remained available to answer follow-up questions and to provide more detailed fee tables and implementation language for the ordinance process.