City officials say if they can't charge what they consider fair impact fees to new homeowners and developers, they just won't annex them into the city.
In action taken at the Sept. 16 City Council meeting, the council voted unanimously to extend a moratorium on residential annexations indefinitely. And depending on what the next session of the Legislature does, the city's boundaries may not increase for a long time to come."We found out last week, during the Utah League of Cities and Towns convention, that certain members of the Legislature are once again going to try and kill the impact fees," said Tom Austin, city manager. "We've spent several thousand dollars of taxpayers' money to do the impact fees study as required by the current statute. We designated that the proceeds of the impact fees can go only toward the support of new growth and to maintain our critical municipal services at the current levels."
Nearly 70 percent of Santaquin's 3,000 population are middle- to low-income residents. Austin said it's not fair that current residents carry the tax burden of new developments and people coming into the city.
"People have bought into the system through tax money, when a new person comes in, new demands are made on the city and municipal services," Austin said. "We can't keep up unless impact fees are in place. Impact fees allow people moving in to (also) buy into the system. That's critical to the city and taxpayers."
Santaquin's impact fees are about $4,000 to cover sewer, water and parks. Austin says that while some cities may have abused the system, it would be unfair to Santaquin, which has worked out an equitable system, to have that changed by the Legislature.
"In short, we have done everything we possibly can to make the impact fees perform the service that they are designed to provide under state law," Austin said.
"The council and mayor feel like we have gone the extra mile to make sure our impact fees are administered fairly, and we don't think a change in the state law is to anybody's benefit except those individuals personally making money from municipal growth, such as Realtors, contractors and developers."
Those Realtors, contractors and developers disagree. While they believe new people should pay their fair share of the current infrastructure, they also believe cities should be fair and equitable in their assessments.
Deann Huisih, executive officer of the Utah Valley Homebuilders Association, said some cities just drew a number out of a hat for their impact fees, and take the "not in my backyard" attitude.
"There needs to be more clarity in current law," Huish said. "We are against cities putting more money into their (infrastructure) just to make a better infrastructure."
The governor's current task force on impact fees should eventually give cities a better guideline on establishing impact fees. Huish said members from both the League of Cities and Towns and the homebuilders are on that task force.
However, the current push for equity may not cut it with Santaquin, whose officials claim their fee assessments are based on the most current studies, less than 4 years old.
"We will continue to move forward on those annexations that were works in progress," said Mayor Keith Broadhead. "And we might look favorably at an annexation that includes either a commercial or industrial site, but we cannot afford another large annexation that is purely residential."
Austin said that if the impact fees are again manipulated, and the Legislature undertakes to make cities "jump through a bunch of new bureaucratic hoops," Santaquin will simply not annex another piece of raw land.
"We only have a few building lots left within our municipal boundaries, so the best place for us to stop the drain on our city resources caused by growth, is to deny petitions for annexation."