Argyle is looking for residents to serve on the town’s newly-created Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, which decides the impact fees new developments will be charged.
Recent legislation requires that all municipalities have a Capital Improvement Advisory Committee to update a town or city’s impact fees every five years, as is required under state law.
According to Town Manager Mike Sims, the state requires that at least half of the committee members have a background in real estate, development or building industry.
For Argyle, that means four of the seven seats will need to be filled by residents with a background in those occupations.
Though it is a requirement, Sims is confident Argyle’s residents will fill the committee and put the town in a good place when it comes to new development.
“I would say the citizens of our town will bring a higher level of knowledge… some are really dedicated and have been following these issues for a long time,” he said. “Them updating the [impact] fees is a very important part of governing the town and we’re going to have a great group of engaged citizens and we’ll end up with a nice product at the end.”
Impact fees are one-time fees charged by the town to new developments in an effort to mitigate the impacts done by the development.
Sims used an example of a housing development.
“If a new development builds 10 houses, we know the 10 houses will impact our town with new people driving on our road system and using our wastewater system,” he said. “We might estimate those cars are going to drive such and such distance, therefore, we calculate the amount we anticipate to spend on new roads.”
Previously, impact fees were handled by Argyle’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which served as a “de facto” CIAC.
The town has a formula it uses to calculate the anticipated impact of residential and commercial developments, but committee members will be able to adjust that formula and come up with an exact dollar amount.
Recent legislation change prevents the town from updating impact fees every year, so the number decided on by the CIAC for each type of development will remain for at least three years.
Mayor Ron Schmidt said the committee is important amid a time of growth because, if fees aren’t correctly calculated, the extra cost gets put on the town’s residents.
“This is very important, because [the town] isn’t allowed to have surplus, so if you don’t capture all the impact fees, the existing residents pay the [leftover], and that’s unfair,” he said. “You gotta get your numbers right, otherwise you have to live with that for three years.”
When the town receives the impact fees, they can be spent on new roadways, survey or engineering fees, land acquisition costs, debt service of the impact fee capital improvement plan and planning studies.
The town plans on appointing candidates to the committee at the January Town Council meeting on Tuesday.
