Fees, housing discussed at Orange County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday

The Orange County Board of Commissioners met Tuesday to discuss several issues related to housing, including possible school impact fee increases and housing affordability.

Perdita Holtz, Orange County planning systems coordinator, proposed changes to school impact fees. Instituted by Orange County in 1993, such fees have been used to increase the student capacity of Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

Impact fees, which are placed on proposed or new developments, are used to pay for a portion of the cost of providing services to the new development.

Current school impact fees make no distinction between dwellings in terms of their size or capacity, whereas the new drafted fees would distinguish between properties based on the number of rooms in the house or apartment.

The proposal, drafted by independent consulting firm TischlerBise Inc., would increase school impact fees for larger dwellings, namely houses or apartments with more than three bedrooms.

Craig Benedict, Orange County planning and inspections director, responded to board members’ concern as to how increased fees would affect the price of housing, especially when private developers are concerned.

“WIth impact fees, since we’ve put them into operation over the last 15 years, our role is to not make decisions about how the private sector will add or incorporate them.” Benedict said.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs is in favor of adjusting impact fees but he agreed that the proposed changes conflict with the board’s interest in curbing rising housing costs.

“Our board is interested in promoting affordability of housing, especially at the lower end of the housing spectrum," Jacobs said. “If we wanted to adjust the impact fee schedule in a more responsible way, it may be advantageous.”

Vice Chair Mark Dorosin said the conversation surrounding the impact fee shouldn’t be tied to possible responses by the housing industry. 

“I’m very pessimistic about the likelihood of us getting affordable housing created by the private sector in Orange County, regardless of the impact fee,” Dorosin said. “I’m not sure how much tweaking you could do with this where you could encourage private developers to develop housing that’s affordable to working people.”

Additional concerns about affordable housing were addressed later, during the board’s discussion of the 2016-2020 Affordable Housing Strategic Plan, which would substantially increase the availability of affordable housing in Orange County.

Travis Myren, Orange County deputy manager, answered several questions and concerns raised about 1,000 affordable housing units proposed for development by the Housing, Human Rights and Community Development department at the Sept. 8 board meeting.

Myren clarified how the proposed units would be allocated. Spread between four different categories, 750 units would be designated to people in three income brackets — 250 units to each — and another 250 units would be allocated to the special needs population. 

Jacobs said the plan was too ambitious.

“The more and more we are calculating the 1,000 units the less comfortable I am,” he said. “Government has a tendency to overestimate what it can achieve, thereby it intentionally misleads people and sets higher expectations than can be realized.”

Commissioner Mia Burroughs said she is pleased with how far the plan has progressed and hopes the project can achieve its targeted number of units.

“I’m OK with being aspirational — I think it’s good to set aspirational goals," she said. "It’s out there, we’ve talked about that thousand and if we don’t make the thousand, that’s fine, because it tells us what more we need to do.” 

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