Who will pay??

I can't say that I'm surprised. In today's article from the Miner there is a bit about how 'impact fees' won't be enough to guarantee enough income to pay the city's portion of the many years out Interstate project known as Rattlesnake Wash.

From the article...

Fortunately, the city is responsible for only 30 percent of the project, about $11 million of the approximately $35-million interchange project. The state is picking up the majority of the tab.

Unfortunately, the city's impact fee revenue totaled only $1.7 million through June 30, an amount comprising incomes since the fees were implemented in 2006. The transportation portion of those revenues - the part that legally could be used to pay for the traffic interchange - sits at a two-year total of $756,839.

Based on the past two years' income, the city wouldn't be able to pay its share of Rattlesnake Wash using impact fees until 2037.

While it may be fortunate that the state is picking up $24 million dollars... and Mohave County is putting $2 million dollars aside to help Kingman pay for the needed infrastructure... this is only phase one of a two phase project. Kingman is on its own for another $11 million dollars or so for that 'evacuation route' as some have called it that leads south from RW to Hualapai Mountain Road.

More...

If Kingman does not have its share of the costs for Rattlesnake Wash by 2013, the project will be canceled. There are several other options available, including revenue bonds, community facilities districts and other cost-sharing avenues available to the city, all of which will be explored for the two projects, (Mayor John) Salem said.

So... who will pay??

It would interesting to see if the hopeful solution comes down to revenue bonds. I mean some very interested people in Kingman were against the bonds on the ballot last year, but revenue bonds for this project won't likely meet the same resistance from those same folks since this project is so close to property and interests they own.

The campaign signs put up for last Novembers special election had the word 'NO' all over them, my guess is that if the hopeful solution is passing a bond or two for funding that the signs will be strewn with plenty of 'YES'... maybe even the words 'pretty please'.

The bottom line though is that this project is NEEDED for our growing community (for such things as improved public access connecting other parts of Kingman, for improved commercial access to the airport, and to help the natural progression of growth along the Interstate and towards the east side of Kingman). This is a very important future project and along with expansion of the city boundaries, the community should be looking at realistic ways to make the proposed infrastructure a reality. Hopefully a CFD, improvement district, or other forms of development agreements can be worked out with the private property owners to a large degree.

At this point, as of this day... I have to believe the property owners at both proposed new interchanges will have to pony up and front major portions of the costs. I'm in favor of reasonable reimbursement options out of new commercial sales tax revenues created at developments. Maybe even some kind of additional charge (like impact fees) on any new residential developments in the areas and thereby passing costs to reimburse on to the new residents of the developments.

The time to be creative is right now.

See another good article about impact fees right here.

UPDATE:

Our good buddy, Ken Herskind, had an interesting bit to offer from the article linked at the top. You can read the entire thing there but I wanted to share this...

If the 168 acres are rezoned commercial and the interchange put in for Kingman Crossing, the PEOPLE would stand to receive TENS OF MILLIONS of dollars which can be used for other needed services and infrastructure....ALL WITHOUT RAISING OUR TAXES A DIME.

So, I personally would like to see both interchanges, but the people of Kingman have a vested interest in Kingman Crossing.

Yep, and while a few of us were trying to make that point last year... our voices were drowned out by folks with other interests that were more for their own personal interest instead of the community interests. The new council has to take a firmer grasp of all the issues surrounding the Kingman resident owned 168 acres near Kingman Crossing. It really isn't difficult to manage this incredible asset in order for the entire community to benefit.