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E-mail StoryPolitics stall impact fee
Only $136 million in coffers so far for $2 billion in projects
| Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:35 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:40 PM
The story of the failure of the local traffic impact fee is not a history lesson so much as it is a lesson in politics.
Back in 1992, local politicians knew what was coming and they knew how much it would cost -- at least $1 billion by 2011. They had a chance to assess an impact fee on new development that would help pay for the increased traffic on local roads. The fee was estimated to bring in $603 million.
But developers wouldn't stand for it and local politicians couldn't, or wouldn't, stand up to the developers.
"We got to the point where we said, 'We'll get something on the books,'" said Ron Brummett, of the Kern Council of Governments. "It was reduce (the fee) or get nothing."
The impact fee was dropped from around $6,000 per new house to $1,179 per new house.
Planners and politicians all knew it wouldn't be enough. And they were right.
In the intervening years the fee has gone up to $6,826 per new house.
"An objective look backward into the past indicates that the fee was not adequate to meet the demand," said county Supervisor Mike Maggard. "I think it's much closer to being adequate now than it was then."
Except that the cost of Bakersfield's road problems has increased to at least $2 billion.
Developers have paid only $130.8 million in traffic impact fees since 1992.
They built about $6 million in projects on the construction list in exchange for deductions of their impact fee bill.
Which means developers have contributed a thin 6.8 percent of Bakersfield's $2 billion transportation needs while generating the bulk of the city's new congestion.
Bakersfield developers have paved over 27.6 square miles of agricultural land and open space in metropolitan Bakersfield since 1994, according to Bakersfield records. But they have only paid a fraction of what it costs for roads to connect all those housing and shopping developments.
The $136 million they've contributed to traffic solutions may sound like a lot of money.
But when you're talking freeways, it's half a bag of peanuts.
"That's only about a mile-and-a-half of freeway -- without an interchange," Brummett said.
There is also evidence, in city records, that impact fee money was spent -- not on roads -- but other costs such as debt payments, printing and training.
The Westside Parkway, which may begin construction in 2008 or 2009, is estimated to cost $300 million.
And construction bids have been smashing government cost estimates to optimistic rubble in the past several years.
"I would suspect that because of what's happened worldwide with respect to concrete and steel costs, there is probably a good likelihood that our fees are not covering the increased costs we're experiencing," said Supervisor Ray Watson.
That realization has dawned on city and county planners. A new, higher impact fee is already in the process of being studied, said Bakersfield Public Works Director Raul Rojas.
What that study will show is uncertain.
But we do know that it has taken developers 15 years to pay for half a freeway.
And Bakersfield needs five freeways, two expressways, several urban interchanges and long miles of extra lanes on major roads to handle the traffic that growth has created.