Impact fees that have been paid by developers in Will County for 20 years are being contested by Gallagher & Henry, a builder that is facing more than $1 million in fees for its proposed 414-acre, 800-home Kingston Hills subdivision in Homer Township.
The fees, which are paid to school districts affected by the added population, are either contributions of land or their cash equivalent. The size of the fee is a matter of contention between the builder and Lockport Township High School District 205.
The high school estimates a $1 million price for the dozen or more acres that Gallagher & Henry is required to contribute, contending that the cost per acre is $90,000. The builder values the 12 acres at only $130,000 because it has tentatively priced an acre at $10,000, according to Gallagher & Henry attorney Tracy Kasson.
The builder is planning an appeal to Will County’s Land Use Committee at a special hearing Tuesday. Both sides are expected to present data based on the number and size of homes to be built, said Richard Loding, the county’s supervisor of assessments.
“The Land Use Department has asked me to act as arbitrator of some sort, and we’ll offer our own acre value,” said Loding. “This is entirely new to this office. I’m going to be looking for advice from the state’s attorney for an interpretation of the county ordinance.”
Although Will County’s school-site contribution ordinance has been on the books since 1973, an appeal process has only been available for the last two years.
The ordinance uses a formula, developed by the Illinois School Consulting Service of Naperville, to calculate the anticipated number of elementary and high school students who will move into new homes of different sizes and values, said District 205 business manager Thomas Filipiak. For example, a three-bedroom home would mean an additional 0.146 high school students and a four-bedroom home would mean 0.307 high school students.
Under terms of the ordinance, 1,500 new students would require a new school on 45 acres, or .03 acres per student. Once the district determines how many acres a developer should contribute, that number is multiplied by the value of an improved acre within the district.
Because District 205 has seven elementary districts with varying land values, school officials have calculated impact fees using land prices from within the individual elementary district.
If a new home is planned in Fairmont Elementary District 89, one of the poorest elementary districts in Will County, the high school will base its land value on property within that district. In the case of the Gallagher & Henry, the project is in Homer District 33C, where escalating land prices have boosted the price of an acre in Homer Township to more than $90,000.
Gallagher & Henry wants an “average value” used, said Kasson. In addition, he said the district’s “method of valuing an acre is flawed. They’re taking an improved 10,000-square-foot lot within a subdivision and multiplying it by four to come up with an acre value.”
Instead, the district should look at the value of an acre within a large tract of farmland, he said.
“We rely on Homer 33C to do the calculation within their district and we accept their value,” said District 205’s Filipiak. “They look at all lots sold in the district over one year. We feel it is a very justifiable value. When Gallagher & Henry looks at an acre, they’re looking at raw farmland.”
Assessor Loding said he’s not sure how the ordinance will be interpreted. “But I’m very interested to see how two sides can be so far apart when it comes to estimating land value within Homer Township,” he said.
“The impact fees set by law don’t necessarily cover what the districts need to build schools,” said Barbara Smiles, director of the Land Use Department. “The purpose of the impact fee is to lessen the impact of new development on a community’s schools. Every time you have a large subdivision, you either have to charge impact fees or raise everyone’s taxes.”
The Land Use Committee is expected to make a recommendation to the County Board at its June 17 meeting, Smiles said.
