Months of threats and counterthreats melted into smiles and handshakes as a dispute between Naperville and the Northern Illinois Home Builders Association over road-impact fees ended without the help of a judge.
Leaders of the city and the builders organization announced during a recent City Hall news conference that they had reached an out-of-court settlement.
The compromise that followed weeks of negotiations will include a reduction of many fees the city charges developers for future road reconstruction. In exchange, two lawsuits filed by the builders association against Naperville will be dropped.
The two sides expect to make final the seven-year pact as early as next month.
“In the end, it was a matter of communication and wrapping up what we had on the table,” said Mayor George Pradel. “This is a great day.”
Talks between the two sides were able to whittle the city’s 20-year road plan to an estimated cost of $50 million, from $75 million, leaving the builders’ share at 69 percent of the total.
City Manager Peter Burchard said a group of plans for road reconstruction was moved off a list of projects eligible for impact fees but will remain on the city’s 20-year radar. Among the projects removed from the list were extensions of 95th Street and Wehrli Road.
Burchard said the city wanted to see the battle end without the completion of litigation. The city also wanted to maintain its view that new growth should pay for itself and ensure that any settlement did not include an increase in the city’s unfunded roadway costs.
“Each goal was met,” Burchard said.
The settlement will lower the impact fees in the most controversial residential categories. Included are reductions for each single-family home in a subdivision to $1,800, from $2,645, and for each town home in a development to $1,050, from more than $1,480. The fee for multifamily units will be reduced to $1,050, from more than $1,580.
Builders will pay the current fees until the deal becomes final in several weeks.
In return for the lighter bills, the builders association will drop two lawsuits against Naperville, including a 1998 suit that had sought the refund of millions of dollars in fees.
But that suit will be allowed to progress to a class action before it is dismissed so the final deal can have greater reach.
Also removed in the agreement is Naperville’s threat of a building moratorium, which had been hanging over the talks for months.
Naperville had suggested it would freeze the issuance of permits for development that would carry a fee, whether residential or commercial, to limit the city’s exposure in the suits.
Both sides said the moratorium threat was a significant motivating factor in the talks.
“It appeared to a lot of people, us included, that this situation was escalating out of control,” said Kent Huffman, executive vice president of the builders association.
“It forced both sides to look each other in the eye,” Pradel said.
Craig Cobine, an attorney for the builders organization, said the agreement should take the city to the edge of its high-growth cycle.
Naperville has gained about 100,000 residents since 1970, but city leaders have said they expect their town to be nearly built out within 10 years.
Tom Bart, the plaintiff in the second suit and the new president of the builders association, called the settlement fair. He said the city guarantee that fees won’t rise soon meets developers’ goal of keeping the fees stable and predictable.
The builders never sought the elimination of the fees, he said.
The city adopted road-impact fees in 1988 after abandoning its policy of charging property owners for a portion of repairs to streets their land fronted.
