Comment on Oklahoma City Council considers impact fees to improve streets

By William Crum Staff Writer wcrum@oklahoman.comPretty much everyone in Oklahoma City agrees streets are atrocious and the city cannot keep up. The city council could vote Tuesday on a proposal to close some of the gap with traffic impact fees, an idea that has drawn opposition from commercial developers. Ward 5 Councilman David Greenwell said he was optimistic meetings over the past several weeks had been sufficient to minimize differences. "I'm hopeful that we can come to some kind of agreement," he said Friday. Experts say impact fees shift costs of new and expanded infrastructure — for instance, on fringes of the city — to residents most likely to benefit from improvements. That is seen as more equitable than bonds repaid through taxes levied on residents who might never drive on a new street built across town from where they live. Experts say impact fees can help limit sprawl in high-growth metros such as Oklahoma City, but warn sprawl can migrate to ex-urban areas hungry for development. Similar to other states, Oklahoma law allows cities to levy impact fees for streets, parks, water, wastewater, storm water and transit, and police and fire protection. Oklahoma City currently collects impact fees only for water and wastewater. The city says current fees are at or near the bottom of a list that includes Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Kansas City, Mo., and other cities in the West and South. Proposed increases would move Oklahoma City up the list but nowhere near the top. City Manager Jim Couch has said current resources are inadequate to meet the city's growing needs. The city council has bumped up funding for street repairs several times in recent years by drawing $8 million from reserves. Plans to do so this year faltered, though, due to the sagging oil and gas economy and its effect on sales tax revenues, which are down 1.2 percent from this time last year. Summarizing the case for impact fees, Couch said bonds alone cannot keep up with the demand for new infrastructure, and for maintaining existing infrastructure, at the pace Oklahoma City is growing. The city estimates responding "to deficiencies in capacity created by new development" has cost an average of $20.4 million per year over the past seven years, for wider roads and safer intersections. The city estimates the proposed traffic impact fee will bring in about $6.7 million per year. How it works To assess the traffic impact fee, the city would create "benefit areas.Read more on NewsOK.com