Impact Fees Should Not Be Used For Social Engineering

Posted by: Chris Steins
Thanks to: Congress on New Urbanism

21 February 2005 - 5:00am

Impact fees add $10,000 to the cost of a new home in the North Albuquerque area, and are being used as a tool for social engineering, writes Jeff Stuve, president of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties.

"...[T]he council's new differential tax is a penalty to West Side homebuyers, but ironically favors "sprawl" of homes to outlying communities. Home construction companies today have stopped buying new lands in Albuquerque, taking their money and builders to outlying communities.

Impact fees are intended to be applied evenly to all development to pay for the impacts of that development on roads, drainage and parks. They were not intended to favor growth in one area and penalize it in another."

Full Story: Impact Fees a Tool of Social Engineers

Source: Albuquerque Journal, February 19, 2005