CC - Agendas - City Council - REGULAR - 11/4/2008

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Prescott City Council Regular Voting Meeting — October 28, 2008 Page 11 Councilman Lamerson said that the economy stinks and it is the wrong time to raise taxes of any kind. He thinks that impact fees are a volatile way to finance growth paying for growth. He thinks that impact fees are the wrong tool and they have set themselves up for the calamity using that tool. There are other ways, such as public/private partnerships and use of property tax, things that are more sustainable. It will be a long time before they are collecting impact fees and they will be putting it on the back of the ratepayers to pay the bonds off. He said that he does not support it either way. Councilwoman Suttles said that they have an ordinance and the concept of a six-month delay is not in front of them and she wanted to know if that could be added. Mayor Wilson said that they could do that by way of motion. Mr. Kidd said that was possible. Councilwoman Suttles said the information they got from Mr. Jackson was about $2,000 for both impact fees. Mr. Jackson said that was correct, for a 5/8" meter.Councilwoman Suttles asked about the next meter size. Mr. Jackson said that he did not have the fees in front of him, but the fees would be higher to make up for the fact that the larger meter impact fees that are currently in place are significantly under-recovering the amount of growth-related expenses that the City is incurring to provide service to those meters. He said that approximately 80-85% of the new connections of the City are 5/8" residential meters. Councilwoman Suttles asked if that applied to commercial as well. Mr. Jackson said that typically the meter size is larger than 5/8" for commercial. Councilman Suttles said that she was given a sheet that indicated that the impact fees were at odds with the General Plan, and she asked if that was correct. Mr. McConnell said that as he understands the question, embedded in the question is a legal question. The legal question is, the City of Prescott adopted a General Plan which has text or provisions and if a financing mechanism (impact fees, construction sales tax, etc.) is not specifically mentioned as a way or tool for financing future growth, whether that makes an impact fee ordinance at conflict with the General Plan. Mr. Kidd said that the General Plan sets out zoning requirements; this particular ordinance is specific in terms of the methodology that is used to calculate. The law says that in statutory interpretations, when there are two different ordinances that are inconsistent, they are trying to give effect to both. The General Plan uses the term "fixtures" and the proposed impact fee ordinance does not; it is based on a metering charge. The question is whether or not that is inconsistent. Both of them could be read together. His