Impact fee debacle continues
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Editor,
Developer Mike Maddy was told by city planning official Joyce Weaver that a special use permit was needed for a commercial building annexed into the City. City attorney James Raymond, serving as city manager at the time, and later, city manager Todd Crossett, ruled Maddy’s building would not be subjected to the normal planning process for an SUP. Individuals who were trying to address the SUP issue and other irregularities discovered Raymond did not pay impact fees when applying for a building permit for his new home and Maddy was not required to pay impact fees for the commercial building.
Resident taxpayers spent more than $62,000 to hire a consulting firm to inform and advise the process for adopting an impact fee ordinance. When adopting the ordinance in March 2007, the council voted to exempt subdivisions going through the preliminary planning approval process. The decision caused the ordinance to be unreasonably inequitable. James Raymond may have thought the decision untenable as well, because he didn’t include the decision in the ordinance and the owners of lots in subdivisions going through the preliminary planning process when the ordinance was adopted were required to pay impact fees. When individuals researching irregularities asked for an explanation, Raymond pointed to the city commission decision that he had failed to incorporate into the ordinance as justification for allowing him alone an exemption. Meanwhile, Hillcrest Drive homeowners, when annexed into the city and requesting to hook up to city sewer service, were automatically assessed impact fees amounting to about $3,600 for sewer, parks and fire protection. They were already connected to city water service. City residents, who had been paying city taxes on their city lots for many years, were required to pay $ 7,100 in impact fees when getting a building permit. An outside attorney hired by the city recently called the ordinance unenforceable. The council is paying back the impact fee collected from those that the council decision exempted, but are ignoring the fact that it was inequitable to everyone who paid impact fees.
Margie Hendricks
Polson
