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Small historic county seats would be allowed to impose developer impact fees under bill
Summary
SB 2016 would let small towns that lack school districts, are county seats and have historic districts adopt developer impact fees to fund infrastructure; sponsors said the change would enable preservation-sensitive repairs but fiscal impact could not be precisely quantified.
Chairman Crow told the subcommittee SB 2016 gives ‘‘our small towns that don't have a school system, and are the county seat and have a historic district the same ability to raise impact fees’’ so they can fund local infrastructure projects.
Crow read a list of municipalities the amendment would affect and said the change makes it possible for those towns to ‘‘put those dollars toward their infrastructure’’ when developers build new areas. He said the amendment is permissive—local governing bodies would still have to vote to adopt any fee by ordinance.
Senator Yarbrough questioned the approach as ad hoc and said the committee should consider a broader fix instead of repeated one-off bills. Crow responded that, ‘‘until we are able to do that in a grand fashion,’’ the bill provides a targeted remedy for towns that currently lack authority to charge impact fees.
The committee approved the bill as amended and voted to send it on with a positive recommendation (committee vote recorded as 4 ayes, 1 no). The sponsor said fiscal review ‘‘really says it's hard to determine the impact here’’ and provided no definitive statewide fiscal estimate.
