Redevelopment in Harford County might get slightly cheaper than building new if the County Council passes a bill waiving the county?s impact fee for redevelopment projects.
The county charges more than $8,000 per new unit of residential development, but a bill introduced by North Harford County Councilman Chad Shrodes will waive the fees for developments replacing existing projects.
Shrodes? bill was scheduled for a vote Tuesday, but was held over for two weeks pending clarification of some of its language and the closing of potential loopholes.
“We?re staring at a huge deficit in terms of [school] construction,” said Councilwoman Mary Ann Lisanti of Havre De Grace. “We have to be very careful about creating exemptions and loopholes.”
Shrodes? bill was primarily driven by the woes of a constituent whose home burned down. The owner had to pay the impact fee because rebuilding took longer than a year.
Shrodes proposed widening the window from one year after the demolition of the original home to five years.
Lisanti and Councilwoman Veronica Chenowith of Fallston said they fear the revised law is too vague and might allow investors to skirt around paying impact fees on redevelopment projects, putting more students into the schools that the impact fees help pay for.
The county brought in about $3 million in revenue from impact fees in the last year, but the council is attempting to move away from impact fees altogether. Its members have passed several resolutions asking the state to raise the county?s tax on the sale of existing homes to 1.5 percent of each sale, which Guthrie estimated could bring in $10 million per year.
Lisanti said she and Chenowith would work on amendments to the bill before it comes back to the council in two weeks.
