Thank you to Kamuela attorney Margaret Wille for allowing us to post the commentary she published in West Hawaii Today (Mar. 7, 2009), but which is not available on line. Posting on inversecondemnation.com is not an endorsement of the views expressed or the conclusions reached, but we thought it was worthwhile to hear others’ voices on this important subject. Disclosure: we represent the property owners in the eminent domain cases instituted by the County, County of Hawaii v. C&J Coupe Family Ltd. P’ship which she discusses. Our thoughts on the topic are posted here.

Who Pays For Impacts: You Do
by Margaret Wille

Recently there have been several articles in West Hawaii Today about “fair share” versus “impact” fees.  Probably there are many readers who wonder why do these fees matter to me. In other words, does this issue affect the ordinary Big Island taxpayer?  Yes, very much so.  

These fees, regardless of name, are charged to developers to defray a portion of the cost to maintain the current level of service for one or more categories of public facilities impacted by the proposed development.

The first question to ask is whether you believe the developer who reaps the financial benefit of the new development should shoulder a portion of the financial cost to maintain the current level of service for affected public facilities that are off of the developed property, e.g. area roads or police and fire stations. Would you rather all of the resulting costs to maintain the current level of service of these affected public facilities be paid for by us existing taxpayers? By way of example, when Costco went in, who paid the 5.5 million in cost to upgrade the Queen K intersection, just to maintain the current level of service at that intersection (I believe the level of service of that intersection was level D if not worse.) We did, you, me, all of us existing taxpayers and businesses paid for the improvements needed just to continue at that same low level of service (and if bond money was used for a portion of either the County’s or the State’s cost, you could say we saddled our kids with some of this expense).  If the County had passed a development fee ordinance consistent with the State’s 1992 impact fee law, some of the County’s cost of those intersection improvements would instead have been paid by Costco’s owners.  

Continue Reading Impact Fees And “Fair Share” Guest Commentary: “Who Pays For Impacts: You Do”