State Representative Mike Kohler who represents District 54, including Wasatch County and those living within the municipality of Park City has opened a bill to try and reinstate impact fees for education.
“Most of us that have built or are around building understand what impact fees are and they kind of give a buy into the new people, whether it's a water system or a sewer system, Kohler said. “And we're all seeing increases in costs and what the expenses, especially through property taxes, to individual property owners are. I think, an impact fee on new developments and new income would lessen than that over time and help some of the people that are already there, not to have to carry all the bill. There's a lot of discussion about this to be had. I'm just getting started on it.”
The fees would help school districts offset the cost of building new school facilities by charging those moving into the area up front to buy into the system that those already living in a community have been paying for through their property taxes. Impact fees are already allowed for new water and sewer connections.
Utah developers have historically been against impact fees, arguing that the fees are just passed on to new home buyers, making it even more difficult to purchase a home in a market that many can’t already afford to get into.
Proponents however say the savings for building new schools is passed on to everyone in the district since the impact fee dollars go to pay for a new school to educate the kids of the new residents.
This isn’t the first time impact fees for education have been introduced. In the 1990s, Park City developer Jim Doilney voluntarily agreed to collect impact fees when he was developing the Snyder’s Mill subdivision. The fees were collected when the homes were sold and passed on to the Park City School District. When the state legislature heard about it, school impact fees were outlawed and all of the fees that had been collected in Park City had to be returned.
Similar bills have been proposed in prior sessions of the state legislature, but none have had the political backing for approval.
