Equal protection... why should the County care

[808blogger]

exceptions for income. did the people that developed first pay the fee? will they get access to the improvements?

[Bob Orts]

The exception for income does not alter the Impact Fee on the project; it just defers payment until sale. It would be treated like a tax lien on the property. Most communities that have such a deferral have faced problems and have reduced the deferral percentage or eliminated it. I think this may be just Council talk for the PR or appearance and not actual implementation.

Did people who already developed pay the fee? No, there was no fee for them to pay. Impact costs are currently shouldered by every taxpayer, not the person causing the impact. You pay it though taxes that go towards capital reserves or debt service. And taxpayers may still be paying it for years to come. So a developer of a private gated townhouse project in N. Kona district that placed a strain of $3,000,000 on the County budget to address the impact that project had on the N. Kona community, may have not paid any Fair Share money to the County. But that $3,000,000 the project cost the county to provide additional service for that N. Kona area community to mitigate the impact of the project is being paid by you the taxpayer.

Likewise, a development in Puna may have a $2,000,000 impact on the county budget to provide additional services to handle increase impact load on county services, but the Council decides, it's Puna, and since we don't have any extra money we won't provide any additional services to the community. So all the new people, cars on the roads, demand for additional police & fire services, and additional impact on parks due to that project, well too bad for Puna, make do with what you got!

Taxes for the most part are general funds, mixed in a big pot with everyone begging for their scrapes. Impact Fees are targeted funds, so what's collected can only be used for NEW services or to IMPROVE existing services and only for what it was collected for. They collect $10,000,000 for Police and only $1,000 for government administration one year from Impact Fees, the Council can't take the Police money to pay for their administrative refurbishing of Council offices. The impact was on Police services so the money must be spent on that police services. And if structured correctly, the impact is tiered for local impact and county wide impact. So the majority of Impact Fees collected in Puna will provide new and improve services in Puna.

[Aaron S]

The current fair share assessments are not only illegal (due it not being codified into law), but also putting a heavy burden on the taxpayers of this island to fund the cost of building needed infrastructure.

This island will always have inadequate infrastructure until changes are made regarding how developers mitigate the impacts from their projects.

[808blogger]

quote:

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Originally posted by ++++


This island will always have inadequate infrastructure until changes are made regarding how developers mitigate the impacts from their projects. people decide living in crappy crammed subdivions in kona and kohala are not worth the money, people will leave and the resources will be freed up. FTFY!!!!

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[Sean]

It appears to me that a lot of Puna was developed with little to no thought of infrastructure. HPP is a great example of substandard roads (too narrow, little to no shoulders in places, unsafe for pedestrians, etc.) and now as HPP grows in population the County and State are left to do something about Highway 130. That doing something costs money, why not have new development contribute towards it?

It's pretty simple to realize that infrastructure costs bucks and our taxes are paying for it. If we keep the status quo of inadequate funding, then we are in effect keeping the status quo of substandard infrastructure. Perhaps I'm biased, but as an engineer I'd like to have safe interchanges, roads, etc. Yet, folks don't seem to eager to pay the taxes to support such mundane things.

808, As for opting out of the government, Gilligan and the Skipper managed it. Just take a look around the Pacific with google earth and you'll be able to find where to opt out. Just curious, what would be your solution to the infrastructure needs here in Puna? I hope you're solution is not what you typed in Aaron S's quote.

Also, overwriting within the quote brackets makes it look like Aaron S wrote that he has a vendetta against Kona subdivisions and I don't think that's too cool it didn't do much to fix our infrastructure problems.

Cheers,

Sean

Moderator: I removed Aaron's name from the quote above. It is not appropriate for 808 to put words in other people's mouths.

[DanielP]

O.K. So no one bit on my sarcasm. Would anyone like to make a comment about the notion of charging owner/builders half price?

Dan

[JWFITZ]

It's already there, as long as they're of a certain income bracket. If we were as visionary as Delaware, 20 years ago, we'd also exempt certain kinds of businesses, explicitly farming, which unquestionably contributes to the local economy and requires little in services.

Here's sample law.

http://delcode.delaware.gov/title29/c091...ndex.shtml


http://sensiblesimplicity.lefora.com/

[Bob Orts]

quote:

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Originally posted by DanielP

O.K. So no one bit on my sarcasm. Would anyone like to make a comment about the notion of charging owner/builders half price?

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Owner Builder is a construction permitting license ordinance and wouldn't be legal under Hawaii laws for Impact Fees. The "Impact" of a project on local services would be the same if you use a contractor or was an Owner Builder. Just like property taxes are based on valuation, not on who built the structure.

Normally when you look at Impact fees, they are categorized in general groups such as single family residential, multi-housing residential, commercial, retail, resort/hotel, entertainment, industrial, institutional, etc. Each of these categories will have different impact on the various lines of service.

[PaulW]

Thanks for the explanations, Bob. These Impact Fees sound fair to me. Does anyone have any coherent arguments against?

I hope there's some sort of mechanism in place to stop the government from imposing Impact Fees that are over the top.

[DanielP]

Bob,

Perhaps I misquoted. I am referring to the Hoffman quote that 808 blogger used in his start of the thread.

Dan