Earlier this fall, the County Commission indicated that it intended to move quickly to update the impact fees charged to new construction and adopt the necessary ordinances before the end of 2024. After receiving a revised draft of the report prepared by TischlerBise, the consulting firm hired to advise the Commission on updating the fees, the Commission’s plan was to hold a public hearing on November 19, then vote on the fees at the regular Commission meeting two days later on the 21st. Following a lengthy discussion at the November 19 public hearing between the commissioners and the consultant, the commissioners seemed to have more questions than answers, indicating that they were unlikely to be ready to vote on November 21.
The consultant provided a brief presentation on impact fees prior to the public hearing. According to the consultant, the basic concept of impact fees is simple — new construction (both residential and commercial) is charged an up-front fee to cover the cost of expanding the infrastructure needed to support the new residents or new businesses that occupy the new construction. However, the details get complicated.
As explained by the consultant, there needs to be an “essential nexus” between the new growth and the infrastructure fee. So for example, new commercial construction can’t be charged a fee to cover the cost of expanding parks. The fee also needs to be “roughly proportional” meaning that new construction can’t be charged more to cover the cost of expanding services for both new and existing residents. To continue the park analogy, if the current “level of service” for county parks is 1 acre per 100 residents, the fee on new construction should be set to cover the costs of acquiring 1 acre per 100 new residents. If the county wants to upgrade the “level of service” to 2 acres of parkland per 100 residents, it would need to demonstrate that it had a plan to tax existing residents for the cost of acquiring the acreage required to meet that standard for the existing population before it could justify charging new growth at that level.
Jefferson County Population Projections
The TischlerBise report includes a projection for new housing construction in Jefferson County over the next 10 years. The methodology used for the report uses an average number calculated from the previous 5 years, which lease to an estimate of 500 new housing units annually (a housing unit is a single family house, duplex, townhome, or apartment). In the past two years the rate of construction has increased significantly, running closer to 1,000 units per year. Using the TishchlerBise projection, there will be a total of 30,000 homes in the county by 2034 (chart, right). If the trend of the past couple of years continues, the total home number will be closer to 35,000 by 2034. TishschlerBise estimates approximately 2.5 new residents per house, so the 2024 population projection in the report is 74,000. A projection based on the higher home construction numbers of the past two years would forecast a 2034 Jefferson County population of 86,000.
