Royse City may suspend impact fees to promote growth

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March 12, 2010

By DAVID WILFONG CNHI The Zope Gazette Fri Mar 12, 2010, 02:16 PM CST

ROYSE CITY — Royse City Manager Bill Shipp threw out an idea to the four members of the city council present at the March 4 workshop meeting about suspending the city’s impact fees in an effort to spur growth.

Shipp cited Midlothian as a city that was trying to increase development with the suspension of such fees, which are relatively new on the scene in area municipal planning strategies.

In Midlothian, Shipp said, impact fees were suspended for a year for single family homes. It is not yet clear what, if any, impact the measures have had in that city.

Midlothian is not alone, on Tuesday night in the neighboring city of Greenville, the city council also discussed the idea of waiving impact fees. However, the City of Greenville opted not to waive impact fees at all.

Results from that meeting were not available at press time.

Shipp stated that the waiving of fees would most likely be applicable to already existing lots. He cited D.R. Horton as a builder in the area that might increase their rate of building.

“D.R. Horton is aggressively building homes in Woodland Creek, as well as Verandah,” Shipp said. He added that they currently have five homes under construction in Hidden Creek and four in Sunrise Meadows.

The city currently has building permits issued for 126 new homes, which Shipp said was “pretty good.”

Neither Shipp nor EDC President Larry Lott wanted to put an exact figure on the number of homes that they thought would result as a result of waiving impact fees, describing the action as a “crapshoot.”

“Five-thousand dollars, from what we’re told, does entice builders,” Lott said.

Shipp did say that there were a little more than 600 buildable lots in the city, which increases to slightly less than 1,000 if Verandah was included.

Reaction from the council members was mixed.

“I could vote for cutting it in half and putting the $800 inspection fee back in the pot,” said Councilmember Bill Bell. Fellow councilmember Janet Nichol concurred with Bell.

“I think until the end of the calendar year would be fine,” said Russell Summers, adding that he was not sure he could support the measure for an entire year.

Gary Gregory did not have a strong opinion on the matter and added that it was a crapshoot any way the council went on the matter.

The full council did not take up the issue for discussion at the regular city council meeting held on Tuesday.

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