Durham council approves impact fees

DURHAM -- Revised impact fees, payments made by developers upon completion of new construction, were approved Monday night on a 4-3 City Council vote.

But only six of the seven council members were present when the vote was taken.

Council member Farad Ali cast the deciding vote in absentia, because council rules state that any council member who misses a meeting without being excused has all his votes counted as yeas.

Ali said he had to leave for a personal matter, but he declined to say what that was. He said he would have voted for the fee changes had he been present.

Starting July 1, fees will go up for new construction in downtown and in southern Durham, about 24 and 30 percent respectively. Fees in northern Durham will drop by about 55 percent.

The fees help pay for streets, parks and open space.

Mayor Bill Bell, council member Howard Clement III and Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden were on the losing end of the vote.

Bell wanted to delay the vote until a public discussion could take place about continuing efforts to streamline the development review process. Staff members said progress has been made.

"I would have preferred to have that type of message out there before implementing fees," Bell said Tuesday. "It would have just been better public relations."

Bill Kalkhof, president of Downtown Durham Inc., told the council that a speedier review process was more important than the fees.

Nick Tennyson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties, agrees.

"We think they could have held off, and we wished they had," said Tennyson, a former Durham mayor.

With the economy slowing, he said, now is not the time to increase the costs of building homes.

Neither Bell nor Tennyson said they were bothered that Ali cast the deciding vote by default.

As Bell said, "It wasn't we weren't going to do it. It was just the timing of when it was going to be done."

Council member Diane Catotti said the council made plenty of concessions to developers.

She wished the council had set the fees higher, and she noted that the council also held off on approving a second increase that would take effect next year.

Catotti called tying the impact fees to the development review process "a red herring."

"We're very committed to moving the development review process forward," she said. "I don't think that's a rationale for delaying updating our impact fees. ... They have nothing to do with the review process."

Deputy City Manager Ted Voorhees is meeting today with developers to discuss changes to the process.

He assured council members Monday night that efforts are continuing to cut down on the amount of time it takes to get a development reviewed, revised and approved. Another discussion about that is planned for April 3 at a council work session.