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Montana
New Impact Fee Law Designed to Help Montana Towns Cover Costs of Development
To help Montana communities shoulder development costs, state lawmakers asked local officials, planners, builders and smart-growth leaders to join them in crafting an impact fee bill at the last session, but the resulting law isn't clear enough for many jurisdictions to start implementation, reports Ravalli Republic writer Dana Green, quoting Montana Smart Growth Coalition leader Tim Davis, who said that although the bill (SB 185) is ''not perfect,'' it offers an additional tool for handling growth problems, including the affordable housing deficit.
Augmenting a municipal growth policy, which ''is really a starting point -- a policy statement,'' he told some 80 city officials, county commissioners and planners at a recent Montana Association of Counties informational forum in Helena, ''Impact fees are a way to not just say 'We want to protect agriculture,' but instead to say, 'Here's how we want to guide growth most efficiently.''
Many developers support impact fees, considering them more equitable in spreading new infrastructure costs, noted TischlerBise principal Paul Tischler, whose firm conducted impact fee studies for Missoula and Gallatin counties. In contrast to subdivision fees, which make the first builder along a rural road pay its paving costs and often give other developers ''a free ride,'' he pointed out, development impact fees place the burden on all projects whenever they come under construction.
Montana Building Industry Association official Byron Roberts agreed. ''The law is going to get (municipalities) back into the development business,'' he observed. ''It should be the right of local governments to equitably calculate the cost of growth.''
Since the law requires any impact fees to be passed by local government resolution, after a full public hearing process, said Bozeman planner Chris Sauders, in charge of his city's impact fee program since 1996, they ''should start a real community conversation about how to grow most efficiently.'' -- Ravalli Republic
11/21/2005
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