City Council approves impact fee adjustment

A vote by the Issaquah City Council to waive transportation impact fees for businesses that occupy up to 10,000 square feet of commercial space brought smiles and sighs of relief to a small group of business owners gathered at the Tuesday, Jan. 20 council meeting. “I think the decision is spot on,” downtown business owner Keith Watts said when the agenda bill went to the council. “(Planning Director Mark Hinthorne) has come up with an excellent plan.” The resolution should make it easier for small businesses to take over space in empty Front Street stores — space owners had hoped for but couldn’t afford because of the high impact fees that would have been levied. Under the new ordinance, any business 10,000 square feet or less will be completely exempt from paying the impact fee; if the business is larger, they will only pay for the portion over 10,000 square feet. And while much of the attention has been focused on Front Street and the downtown core, the ordinance applies to any business in the city. A 30,000 square foot space divided into three 10,000 square foot spaces for seperate businesses would also qualify, Hinthorne said. Councilman John Rittenhouse began the discussion of the new ordinance with a detailed history of Issaquah’s transportation impact fees, including how they can be spent, when they were last reviewed, and how they relate to King County impact fees. The state’s Growth Management Act authorizes cities to charge impact fees to help assure that public facilities can keep up with new growth. The fees are charged to both new developers and to tenants who are changing the use of a building. They were first established in 1997, and then updated in 2006. This city also engages in a reciprocal transportation impact fee agreement with King County, meaning that development in the city pays for its effects on roads in unincorporated King County, and vice versa. But the council recommended that the agreement be terminated as part of the agreement to transfer development rights to the Issaquah Highlands, and because the city increased its own impact fees in 2006. The coupling of these two may affect the economic vitality of the city, Rittenhouse said. The ordinance comes with a sunset clause — it will be reviewed again in March 2010. “It is the committees intent that this amendment is a temporary measure to maintain economic vitality through difficult economic times,” Rittenhouse said. “It should be repealed when the economy recovers.” However the council expects it to last longer than one year. Councilwoman Eileen Barber, a former downtown merchant, applauded the ordinance as a way to bring businesses to the downtown corridor, and reminded everyone of how business supports the community through the taxes they pay and the jobs they create. “It’s extremely important to move forward with this to encourage those storefronts that are now vacant to quickly fill so that we can get that feel, especially downtown, that complete feel going,” she said. “Empty storefronts do not entice people to wander the streets. When we have a full, active community downtown it’s going to draw people in and it’s going to help the existing businesses as well as new ones.”

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