Proposed Construction Fees Attacked : Supervisors: The plan, which could raise more than $210 million for highway projects, joins three unlikely allies in opposition.

By SARA CATANIA

Aug. 30, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A proposal to levy hefty fees on new construction to pay for road repairs and ease traffic congestion in Ventura County has met with strong opposition from developers, environmentalists and cities.

The plan, to be considered today by the Board of Supervisors, calls for traffic-impact fees ranging from $2,800 for single-family houses to more than $80,000 for fast-food restaurants.

If approved by the board, the fees would apply to all new development in the unincorporated county area.

Ultimately, new construction countywide could be subject to the fees if the county is successful in forging agreements with each of its 10 cities. The assessments could raise more than $210 million to pay for 30 projects, including improvements to county roads, state highways and freeways.

The plan has brought together unlikely allies who oppose it for very different reasons. Developers complain the fees are prohibitive and could stifle new construction. Environmentalists argue that the charges would have the opposite effect, encouraging development on farmland and other undeveloped property.

Without the fees, or some other major source of revenue, the county may not be able to keep its roads in working condition, said Art Goulet, the county’s director of public works.

“There are many, many roads that need repairs,” Goulet said. “That situation will continue to develop as the population grows in the county.”

According to a county report, only 9% of the population growth in the next 10 years will occur in unincorporated areas. Consequently, Goulet said it makes sense for the cities to help pay the traffic fees because city residents rely on freeways and county roads to get around.

“Hopefully, the board can adopt a fee that’s palatable to all concerned,” Goulet said. “Then we can get on with getting the agreement with the cities.”

Such agreement appears unlikely, however, because several cities have said they will not allow the county to charge developers who build within city limits.

Five Ventura County cities already charge traffic impact fees, ranging from $224 for a single-family residence in Simi Valley to $5,245 for a similar dwelling in Ventura.

“I can’t imagine the city of Ventura agreeing to such a massive increase in fees,” said Nazir Lalani, the city’s traffic engineer. “You’re putting all the cost on the backs of developers, which is a really tough sell.”

Elaine Freeman, a board member of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., agreed.

“This kind of a fee could really be devastating to businesses,” Freeman said. “On the one hand you’ve got everybody talking about trying to revitalize the economy and bring in business. But then you bring in some idea like this that could kill everything.”

Freeman, whose group plans to testify at the supervisors’ meeting today, said she will ask the board to scuttle the fees and instead seek a half-cent sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

Freeman said the association would back such a tax, but she acknowledged that the sales tax would not be a quick fix. A proposal to place a half-cent tax on the November ballot was rejected by the county’s Transportation Commission earlier this summer. A similar measure put before the voters in 1990 was overwhelmingly defeated.

If the supervisors are unwilling to drop the fee idea, Freeman said she will ask that the county make road improvement requirements less stringent.

Neil Moyer, president of the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County, said approval of the fees would give developers the go-ahead to build shopping malls and housing tracts on land that until now has been intentionally undeveloped.

“Frankly, the county is strapped for revenue sources and they would like to go out there and scratch the earth and get some developers to put in some tax-generating businesses on county land,” Moyer said. “This is really a hoax to get around” the General Plan stipulation that unincorporated county land remain undeveloped, he added.

Les Card, a consulting engineer who was hired by the Building Industry Assn. to review the impact-fee plan, questioned the accuracy of the data the county used to come up with the fee calculations.

He criticized the county for not creating a new traffic model to use in its analysis and questioned whether the population growth projections are inflated.

‘I don’t want to be overly critical because I’ve only spent a couple of hours reviewing the fee proposal, while some people have spent hundreds of hours putting it together,” Card said. “But I think there’s a lot of room for discussion.”