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Proposed $6,000-per-house development fee might have fixed some road problems
| Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:35 PM
Last Updated: Saturday, Mar 3 2007 8:40 PM
All it takes for a road system to crumble is for politicians to do nothing.
And that is exactly what local elected officials have done for years.
Nothing.
Anyone can look south over the Grapevine and see what sprawling development, without proper roads and freeways first, can do to a community.
Instead of taking the lesson to heart, locals pointed an amused finger south, laughed and said, "We're not as bad as Los Angeles."
Guess what. We soon will be.
"We can't build our way out of this. We are constructing the San Fernando Valley right now in Bakersfield," said Ron Brummett, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments.
This community hasn't built a freeway since work on Highway 58 dead ended, literally, in 1978.
Land developers, meanwhile, have not been idle.
Since 1994 development has paved over 27.6 square miles.
Every inch of growth was blessed by local politicians -- who approve all land-use changes.
Politicians have even fought to defend development from attempts to limit it.
Three years ago, as the recent housing boom made ready to explode, members of the Bakersfield Planning Commission tried to stop development from sprawling too far into agricultural land around Bakersfield.
"You have to have a plan. You have to have the infrastructure -- sewers and roads -- to support development," said Chair Barbara Lomas. "Those were the questions we wanted answered before we let it all go crazy."
Instead of answers, the commission got a firm reprimand from the Bakersfield City Council.
"Council gave clear direction that they weren't interested in limiting growth," Lomas said.
City and county officials certainly haven't been willing to charge developers for the transportation needs of growth either.
Fifteen years ago, sensing the coming storm, city and county engineers and planners proposed a $6,000-a-home fee on new development to pay for roads.
Developers freaked out.
Heavy pressure on politicians paid off for developers -- who routinely invest tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions each election year.
The fee was dropped to $1,179.
Former Kern County Supervisor Pauline Larwood's name is on the county documents that created that first fee.
"It was a political compromise," she said. "Some people balked and the county had to reduce it to get it passed."
Engineer Roger McIntosh, the development industry's point man during early impact fee debates with the city, said the original fee was set at an adequate level.
State Sen. Roy Ashburn, who sat on the board with Larwood at the time, said he was against the impact fee then and now.
"I'm very much opposed to impact fees," he said. "I'm concerned it be as minimal as possible so it didn't adversely affect the cost of housing."
Developers don't actually pay the fee, after all, Ashburn said.
"The charges are passed on to the homebuyer."
Larwood said the fee was set too low to make a real impact on the metro area's road-building needs.
But former Bakersfield City Councilman Kevin McDermott, who was involved in creating the initial fee, blames the politicians who followed for failing to build roads and freeways.
He points, for example, to the Westside Parkway.
"I think that's a lack of leadership on the council in pushing that as a high-priority issue. They've now studied it for ten more years and they haven't gotten anywhere," he said.
Councilman David Couch, who defeated McDermott in 1998, said it was the newer leaders who had to make up for the weakness of the earlier fee.
"I tried for five years to get that fee to where it would be adequate," he said.
It wasn't until 2003 that the fee was raised to near $6,000. And by then, the cost to build freeways had climbed dramatically.
Now the fee is $6,826 per home.
But considering violent increases in the costs of building materials, even that won't be enough to make an appreciable impact on road building.
The city and county planners are now planning to propose another fee increase to politicians. A consultant has been hired to develop the fee, said city Public Works Director Raul Rojas.
"We have two choices," said current Supervisor Mike Maggard. "We either charge new development for the consequences of its actions or we bill the taxpayer."
Bakersfield leaders have always had those choices, or they could have slowed development until the roads caught up.
Instead, they've put off the inevitable. But now that bill is coming due.