Developers warn increased fees will hurt Somerton

SOMERTON — Proposed building increases charged by the city for new construction could chase contractors out of Somerton.

That warning came from two developers recently as Somerton City Council convened a hearing to allow the public to comment on increases in impact fees recommended by a consultant to the city.

The city charges impact fees to builders to defray the additional costs of providing services to new developments, and the increases recommended by the consulting firm TischlerBise would go for future parks, and for new wells, storage tanks, pumps, lines and other infrastructure to provide water.

The consultant recommends raising the impact fee to fund parks by $599 to $1,323 for each new home that is built.

TischlerBise also proposes re-establishing the water service impact fee that was discontinued in 2014. It proposes charging a fee of between $2,274 and $12,121, depending on the amount of water used by the new development.

Thomas Ryan, executive director of the nonprofit Housing America Corp., and developer Agustin Tumbaga, warned the council at the hearing that the increases would hamper future construction in Somerton.

Ryan’s organization oversees a self-help housing program in which low- and moderate-income client families can secure low-interest federal home loans in return for doing most of the construction of their homes themselves.

“Essentially you are looking at an increase of more than $3,000 in impact fees and construction permits. As you might imagine, this would leave the self-help program completely out of the city of Somerton,” Ryan said.

“It’s true that our families work with the same real estate products that other developers have, but their loans are much less, and they have to cover the difference working on weekends.”

Tumbaga said the increases, proposed to take effect in March, would have no impact on the 70

or 80 homes expected to be started in Somerton by the end of the year, but said the fees could drive up the cost of home construction by 30 percent next year. While those costs would be passed along to the consumers, “a lot of people may not want to buy come to Somerton buy a house and live here,” he said.

“We love the city, and we have been fortunate that people want to come to live here, but when the price of a home goes from $165,000 to $185,000, what can happen is that construction slows down, or we go elsewhere to build.”

Mayor Gerardo Anaya suggested that city officials take a second look at the

consultant’s reasons of the recommended hikes.

“Perhaps we should look at the master plan and see how realistic are the improvements that we will have to make in 10 years. We have to look at this more in depth, because this is going to have an impact.”

Councilman Miguel Villalpando agreed. “We know that there is substantial work that needs to be done (to parks and the water distribution system), but it’s one thing to plan for the future and another the justify these increases. With these increases we could price ourselves out of the market.”

Council members said they want to review the recommended increases before continuing the process toward adoption of fee increases.