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Got an e-mail this morning sent to moi and a bunch of other local media folks — including Inga and Jim Scott — from the local Home Builders Association. (Full text below.)

As we've been scribbling, the HBA is saber-rattling over proposed development fee increases on the way to a probable lawsuit.

The politically interesting bit of red meat here: The building industry is ramping up rhetoric against the Thomas roads money ($630 million for the city):

"...the City of Bakersfield has a unique problem. Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program ..."

The association is no stranger to politics. (If anyone has forgotten the anonymous smear ads of the 2006 era, when it went by the BIA moniker, I'll post more background.)

Back in those days, though, the pro-Thomas contingent were the building industry "good" guys. Now, the HBA is bucking against Thomas-necessitated fee increases.

Strange world.

- Gretchen Wenner, staff writer

Here's the full text of the HBA e-mail:

The City of Bakersfield is proposing a near doubling of its Traffic Impact Fee later this month from $7066 to $12870.  That’s reality.  The City will say its reducing its fee, but a simple phone call to the Building Department will correct that misinformation.  The adoption of this fee increase in the midst of a Housing Market Depression is critically bad timing.  Numerous other communities throughout California have attacked impact fees over the past few months and made drastic cuts to attempt to provide an economic jolt to a struggling housing sector, yet the City of Bakersfield has a unique problem.  Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program.  Despite a nine-point plan published by our City Manager to explore various methods to match these funds, the City only plans to rely on one…the Metropolitan Bakersfield Traffic Impact Fee Program.  After all, if they simply double the fee, they’ll capture double the fee revenue and all will be right with the world…right??  Wrong.  Raising fees means fewer building permits, less construction and even more layoffs…and oh yeah, less fee revenue to the City.

The City contends that it needs to raise the fee in order to expand its bonding capacity five years from now, when TRIP is ready to break ground.  Well you only expand your bonding capacity if you expand the revenue base used to pay the debt service on the bonds.  No expanded revenue – no expanded bonding capacity.

The City also says this program is needed to address the impacts of new development?  Fair enough, that after all is the only allowable use of impact fee dollars per the State’s Mitigation Fee Act.  The problem is that not only has the City failed to prove their argument, by failing to address the purpose of no less than $600 million in facilities included in the program, but they also haven’t provided any transparency to the system. After several attempts, the City can’t even produce the mandated annual reports of the current Traffic Impact Fee Program.  Aren’t we entitled to a functioning, transparent program before even more money is channeled into the program?

The members of the Homebuilder’s Association of Kern County are willing to mitigate the impacts that their projects have on the City’s roads. We’ve been accused of “asking questions as a mechanism to bog down and delay the process”.  Well I’m sorry, but when you’re asked to fund a two billion dollar, opaque government program, when is the appropriate time to stop questioning?

Sincerely,

Bob Decker | Executive Officer

Homebuilder's Association of Kern County

PO Box 1848 | Bakersfield, CA 93303-1848

1701 G Street, Suite 2 | Bakersfield, CA 93301

info@kernhba.com | www.kernbia.com <http://www.kernbia.com>