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West Valley City is refiguring the impact fees that it charges land developers to help pay for new growth-induced facilities such as parks, roads, and police and fire stations.
Proposals could lower fees overall for new single-family homes, but raise them for multifamily housing. Costs for new commercial and office space could go up or down significantly, depending on their type.
The City Council has scheduled a public hearing on the proposal for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 3600 S. Constitution Blvd. (2700 West). It could adopt the new fees afterward.
Steve Pastorik, city planning director, said state law regulates what cities may charge for impact fees. "The basic premise behind impact fees is that the city has a level of service, and impact fees can be used to maintain that level of service."
For example, if the city has a certain amount of park acreage per 1,000 residents now, it can charge an impact fee to build more parks to maintain that ratio as the city grows.
The city must periodically update fees according to recent growth and the city's level of services, so it hired a consultant to do that and propose new fees.
Proposed impact fees for parks are rising. They would increase by $253 on a single-family home to $2,285. They would jump by $564 per multifamily housing unit to $1,943.
City plans call for 114 acres in new parks and trails to serve new residential development.
But impact fees for roads are proposed to drop. They would decrease by $469.10 per single-family home to $376.90 and by $280.32 to $233.68 per multifamily unit.
"We're one of the cities that is approaching build-out," Pastorik explained. "So many of the major streets in our city are built already," and growth won't create major demand to change that.
"You compare that with, say, a community in the south end of the valley where they still have very large undeveloped areas, there are many more road projects to be built," he said. "In our case, much of the grid system in West Valley City is in place."
Combining the proposed impact fees for roads, parks, and police and fire facilities, the overall charge per single-family home would drop about $104. But it would increase by $405 for multifamily units. Pastorik said that is simply based on formulas regulated by state law and figured by its consultant.
The overall amounts that such impacts fees could change for commercial and office developments varies greatly according to their type.
For example, they would increase by $349 per 1,000 square feet of space for new shopping centers, but drop by $1,277 for convenience stores with gas pumps. The city has different fee levels for 23 separate types of commercial facilities.