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Grand Junction City Council voted unanimously April 2 to approve a slate of changes in the city’s impact fee policies, including several increases.
Impact fees are one-time fees charged to new developments for growth and development infrastructure.
City staff recommended City Council adopt the maximum supportable impact fees for parks, fire, police and transportation, while not adopting impact fees for municipal facilities or an affordable housing linkage fee.
The fees will increase to their full level via a six-step increase process, with an increase every six months starting Jan. 1, 2026.
The fees will be tied to inflation for future increases and decreases.
Members of the development industry have expressed concerns about the impact fees leading to higher housing costs.
Community Development Director Tamra Allen said fees being set lower than the maximum supportable level has led to some missing capital investment by the city.
“We’ve right sized this and right sized this and right sized this,” Mayor Abe Herman said. “We’ve made compromise after compromise after compromise. We’re at a point where we have a really reasonable proposal in front of us that has little impact on the residential side of things and actually tremendous benefit on the commercial side of things.”
Council Member Scott Beilfuss said the city hasn’t come up with a better way to fund infrastructure other than passing the costs directly to the taxpayers.
“That’s really a hard thing to do,” Beilfuss said. “We have to work together in this whole thing.”
The fee levels will be addressed by Council every six to eight years.
City Manager Mike Bennett said in his experience when communities adopt the full fee and tie it to an inflationary index, there’s less of a need to revisit the impact fee levels unless something out of the ordinary comes up.
“I think we’re where we need to be,” Herman said.