By Warren Cornwall
Herald Writer
The search for money to ease traffic congestion led the Snohomish County Council to raise the fees it charges for new developments.
The decision means an average of $510 more in costs to build a new home outside city limits in the county.
While that means more expenses, the decision was a victory for the housing industry, which had lobbied to fend off proposals to raise fees even more. Environmentalists and citizen activists pressed for new developments to pay a bigger share of the transportation bill.
The 3-2 vote signaled a new direction for the council, which came under Republican control following the November election. The three Republicans — Gary Nelson, John Koster and Jeff Sax — supported a 30 percent increase in the fee, known as a traffic mitigation fee. Democrats Kirke Sievers and Dave Gossett favored a 54 percent increase.
Nelson, the council chairman, said the increase strikes a balance between paying for rising transportation costs and not placing the full responsibility for that on developers or prospective home buyers. The mitigation fees weren’t meant to pay for all of the county’s transportation costs, he said.
"The key is trying to create a fair contribution," he said before the vote.
But Gossett warned the increase didn’t go far enough to ensure the fees keep pace with rising costs. That, he said, left taxpayers to pick up the difference.
"How is that fair to taxpayers?" he said.
The fee was last set in 1995 to cover 60 percent of the transportation costs associated with traffic created by new developments. The cost averaged $1,700 a house. Since that time, the share covered by the fee has shrunk to 40 percent, as inflation and new projects increased overall costs, according to estimates from the county’s Public Works Department.
The Democrat-backed fee increase, also recommended by County Executive Bob Drewel, would have returned the fee to roughly 60 percent of total costs, or $2,600 per house. That would have raised an additional $1.8 million per year, according to county estimates.
The county plans to spend nearly $250 million overall on transportation projects by 2007.
Republicans pinned their increase to a measure of inflation for road construction costs since 1995. It would push the fee to an average of $2,210, bringing in $1 million a year more than is collected now.
That increase mirrored the recommendation from the housing industry.
"I think they came up with a fair balance for everybody," said Mike Pattison of the Snohomish County-Camano Realtors Association.
Pattison had warned the council that heftier increases would find their way into home prices, putting already costly housing further out of reach for typical county residents.
But the outcome disappointed Ellen Gray, a Snohomish resident and longtime proponent of growth management efforts. She said that her property taxes have tripled since 1987, while transportation mitigation costs for developers have gone largely unchanged since 1991.
"I don’t want my taxes to increase a developer’s profit," she said.
You can call Herald Writer Warren Cornwall at 425-339-3463 or send e-mail to cornwall@heraldnet.com.
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