Editorial: Impact fees are needed

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Current taxes are not sufficient to keep up with growth in Nevada, as our overcrowded and understaffed schools, congested roads and shortages in other public infrastructure bear obvious testimony.

Yet local governments have largely passed on an option that since 1989 could have been providing money for at least some growth-related expenses. In that year the state Legislature passed a law allowing them to charge impact fees.

The fees were authorized to be charged to developers for the public costs of drainage, sewers, streets and water mains associated with their projects.

Developers and most public officials in Southern Nevada, however, nixed impact fees from the start, arguing they would slow the growth-based economy.

In 1993 then-Clark County Commissioner Don Schlesinger led a push to adopt impact fees. He worked with an expert who documented their success in other growing cities. The expert said he had seen no slowdown in construction even where the fees amounted to more than $3,000 a home.

Schlesinger supported changing the state law to add parks, libraries and fire and police stations to the public services for which developers could be assessed a fee. Any support Schlesinger gained, however, was lost when the Clark County School District appealed to be included in the mix as well.

With the schools thrown in, developers said they feared paying a fee of $8,000 a home, ending that era's push for meaningful impact fees. Local governments in Clark County eventually opted to negotiate with individual developers over how much they will pay toward most public costs associated with their projects.

Because that arrangement did little to end the shortages, Clark County commissioners last year ordered a study of impact fees and are scheduled to discuss it today.

Also to be discussed is an amendment passed by the 2007 Legislature that prohibits local governments from imposing flat impact fees across their jurisdictions. Clark County has been considering that method, but we do not see the Legislature's action as a showstopper. In fact, variable fees based on home prices would be fairer to entry-level homebuyers.

Our view is that without impact fees, Southern Nevada will continue for decades to experience shortages in public needs. We think they can be assessed fairly, without slowing the economy.