As the Naperville City Council prepares to review the city’s road-impact fees for the fourth time in a decade, Mayor George Pradel said that it is unlikely developers will pay less for their construction projects as a result.
Pradel said he believes the council will not follow the recommendation of the Transportation Management Advisory Committee, which voted 5-4 in April to urge a reduction in the fees charged to developers to pay for roadwork associated with their projects. The council plans to start discussions Tuesday.
Pradel said it was too early to say whether the council will keep the fees at their current levels because many of its members are studying the issue. But he said a reduction in the fees probably is not on the way.
“All we want to do is what’s fair,” Pradel said.
The advisory committee studied the issue for a year.
Concurring with the reduction recommendation would be an about-face from the increases implemented when the fees were last adjusted in 1996.
That vote created so much controversy the council decided to review the issue earlier than usual. State law mandates the fees be revisited every five years.
This year the subcommittee recommended the fee for each single-family home in a development drop to $1,297 from $1,655; the fee for each 1,000 square feet in a commercial development be reduced to $1,618 from $2,223; and the amount charged for each 1,000 square feet in a new office building drop to $2,004 from $3,652.
While most council members also say reducing the fees for residential construction is highly unlikely, at least one said he would be in favor of lowering fees for office and industrial buildings.
Sam Macrane voted against the 1996 increases, and said the fees in non-residential categories should be made “more competitive.” Lowering the fees on office and industrial construction will spur more projects and add to the Naperville tax base, he said.
Douglas Krause, a council member and local real estate agent, said there is no justification in his mind for lowering the fees. Doing so would put the burdens created by new development on the backs of taxpayers already living in the city, he said.
“I’ve always been one of those people who say that growth should pay for itself,” Krause said.
Critics have said lowering the fees will bring more office and commercial projects to the city and could produce a surge in residential construction.
Kent Huffman, executive vice president of the Warrenville-based Northern Illinois Homebuilders Association, which filed two lawsuits against the city last year, said the higher fees have created hardships for builders and have held back residential growth.
“The City Council doesn’t realize how difficult this can be to pass on in home costs in today’s market,” Huffman said.
It isn’t a problem for builders to pass on the cost of a $1,000 fee when the price of a new home is $500,000, Huffman said. But in recent years, he said, with the market in Naperville calling for homes in the $200,000 to $250,000 range, city fees have become a hurdle.
“Some of the guys who are responding to a market that wants lower-priced homes have left,” he said, heading to Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield.
Bob Kallien, the city’s community development director and a member of the subcommittee, called that scenario “laughable.”
Naperville had 75,000 residential units when the fees were implemented in 1988, he said, and today the city has more than 123,000.
