Lincoln's City Impact Fees


I don't know if other US cities have impact fees, but this is what they boil down to here in Lincoln: extra fees levied by the city onto contactors/builders to offset the costs of running new water, sewer, roads, etc. to new developments. Many people here in Lincoln don't like the impact fees, which typically run $2800-3500 on a new home. I don't like them either but because they are WAY too low. I think that the fees should start at $10,000 and go up from there. Lincoln does not have a shortage of existing homes for sale, especially in the more established neighborhoods towards the middle of the city. Some families buy these houses for themselves, but a more-common fate for them is either purchase by a landlord or rental company to be rented out to whomever or to be demolished to make way for an apartment complex. These neighborhoods then begin a slow decline into slumhood, with trash-littered yards and meth labs. You can't park your car in the alley behind your house or even on the street in front of it because you'll wake up to broken windows. You'll wake up late because you were kept up all night by parties and and screaming matches in the street. Or occasionally a gunshot.

It doesn't have to happen. These houses could be bought by families and renovated as necessary to be lived in and cherished as houses of character. These houses have so many individual touches of craftmanship and with a little love can become neighborhood showpieces. Many of the houses are large and have more than enough room for a family where each kid can have their own room and a large shaded backyard for recreation.

But that's not what people want. People want new houses generally not built to last, which cost a couple hundred thousand and look just like the house on either side and the house across the street. They want to live miles away from the nearest grocery, park and school and then gripe that they have no services in their area. So then the area gets filled with stores and schools (paid for by taxpayers). And filling up the SUV for the long drive into the middle of the city for work costs too much. Then THAT area is too "in-town" and a new house must be built in a new development on the edge of town, and the cycle begins again.

So I say if you want to live in a brand new cookie-cutter quasi-mansion in a curvy-streeted and romantically-named development on the edge of town - great! Just be willing to pony up for it. Maybe if the impact fees get raised closer to the true costs of development, people will start coming back to and loving our beautiful inner city.