Real Estate Slowdown Causes Impact Fee Backlash

"Development projects that made economic sense a year or two ago – even with high impact fees – don’t 'pencil' now because interest rates have gone up and prices have stagnated or even dropped. In many cases, the dreams of both developers and cities are now on hold.

Dreams that might move forward if fees were cut from, oh, $100,000 per unit to $80,000, or $80,000 to $40,000. At least that’s what developers say, and that’s what cities think. We’ve heard lots of rumblings around here about cities cutting fees on individual projects and considering widespread fee cuts across the board."