http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078 Got an e-mail this morning sent to moi&nbsp;and a bunch of other local media folks &mdash; including Inga and Jim Scott &mdash; 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): &quot;...the City of Bakersfield has a unique problem. Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program&nbsp;...&quot; 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 &quot;good&quot; 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: &nbsp; The City of Bakersfield is proposing a near doubling of its Traffic Impact Fee later this month from $7066 to $12870.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s reality.&nbsp; The City will say its reducing its fee, but a simple phone call to the Building Department will correct that misinformation.&nbsp; The adoption of this fee increase in the midst of a Housing Market Depression is critically bad timing.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program.&nbsp; 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&hellip;the Metropolitan Bakersfield Traffic Impact Fee Program.&nbsp; After all, if they simply double the fee, they&rsquo;ll capture double the fee revenue and all will be right with the world&hellip;right??&nbsp; Wrong.&nbsp; Raising fees means fewer building permits, less construction and even more layoffs&hellip;and oh yeah, less fee revenue to the City. &nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Well you only expand your bonding capacity if you expand the revenue base used to pay the debt service on the bonds.&nbsp; No expanded revenue &ndash; no expanded bonding capacity. &nbsp; The City also says this program is needed to address the impacts of new development?&nbsp; Fair enough, that after all is the only allowable use of impact fee dollars per the State&rsquo;s Mitigation Fee Act.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;t provided any transparency to the system. After several attempts, the City can&rsquo;t even produce the mandated annual reports of the current Traffic Impact Fee Program.&nbsp; Aren&rsquo;t we entitled to a functioning, transparent program before even more money is channeled into the program? &nbsp; The members of the Homebuilder&rsquo;s Association of Kern County are willing to mitigate the impacts that their projects have on the City&rsquo;s roads. We&rsquo;ve been accused of &ldquo;asking questions as a mechanism to bog down and delay the process&rdquo;.&nbsp; Well I&rsquo;m sorry, but when you&rsquo;re asked to fund a two billion dollar, opaque government program, when is the appropriate time to stop questioning? &nbsp; Sincerely, &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Bob Decker | Executive Officer &nbsp; Homebuilder's Association of Kern County PO Box 1848 | Bakersfield, CA 93303-1848 1701 G Street, Suite 2 | Bakersfield, CA 93301 &nbsp; info@kernhba.com | www.kernbia.com &lt;http://www.kernbia.com>&nbsp; &nbsp; Got an e-mail this morning sent to moi&nbsp;and a bunch of other local media folks &mdash; including Inga and Jim Scott &mdash; 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): &quot;...the City of Bakersfield has a unique problem. Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program&nbsp;...&quot; 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 &quot;good&quot; 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: &nbsp; The City of Bakersfield is proposing a near doubling of its Traffic Impact Fee later this month from $7066 to $12870.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s reality.&nbsp; The City will say its reducing its fee, but a simple phone call to the Building Department will correct that misinformation.&nbsp; The adoption of this fee increase in the midst of a Housing Market Depression is critically bad timing.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Bakersfield must prove that it can match funds allocated to the Thomas Roads Improvement Program.&nbsp; 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&hellip;the Metropolitan Bakersfield Traffic Impact Fee Program.&nbsp; After all, if they simply double the fee, they&rsquo;ll capture double the fee revenue and all will be right with the world&hellip;right??&nbsp; Wrong.&nbsp; Raising fees means fewer building permits, less construction and even more layoffs&hellip;and oh yeah, less fee revenue to the City. &nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Well you only expand your bonding capacity if you expand the revenue base used to pay the debt service on the bonds.&nbsp; No expanded revenue &ndash; no expanded bonding capacity. &nbsp; The City also says this program is needed to address the impacts of new development?&nbsp; Fair enough, that after all is the only allowable use of impact fee dollars per the State&rsquo;s Mitigation Fee Act.&nbsp; 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&rsquo;t provided any transparency to the system. After several attempts, the City can&rsquo;t even produce the mandated annual reports of the current Traffic Impact Fee Program.&nbsp; Aren&rsquo;t we entitled to a functioning, transparent program before even more money is channeled into the program? &nbsp; The members of the Homebuilder&rsquo;s Association of Kern County are willing to mitigate the impacts that their projects have on the City&rsquo;s roads. We&rsquo;ve been accused of &ldquo;asking questions as a mechanism to bog down and delay the process&rdquo;.&nbsp; Well I&rsquo;m sorry, but when you&rsquo;re asked to fund a two billion dollar, opaque government program, when is the appropriate time to stop questioning? &nbsp; Sincerely, &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Bob Decker | Executive Officer &nbsp; Homebuilder's Association of Kern County PO Box 1848 | Bakersfield, CA 93303-1848 1701 G Street, Suite 2 | Bakersfield, CA 93301 &nbsp; info@kernhba.com | www.kernbia.com &lt;http://www.kernbia.com>&nbsp; &nbsp; en-us Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:09:31 PDT <p><span style="font-size: small">For at least 15 years the development and growth&nbsp; machine has been steaming along with carte blanche approvals for the plethora of sprawling and leapfrogging projects that made them a bundle of profit ('course they didn't save enough of it&nbsp;to cover these&nbsp;bad economic times).&nbsp;With greed and avarice directing the show, developers and builders made a minimum&nbsp;of $100,000 per house and&nbsp;they were able to keep the prices under what should have been the correct market&nbsp; price because the development impact fees across the board were dirt cheap.&nbsp; That helped the complicit mortgage industry with loan approvals for people who couldn't afford it, and everybody made out like a bandit.&nbsp; The City and County were giddy with growth but the taxpayers will end up&nbsp;subsidizing those development and growth profits.&nbsp; &nbsp;And now, when it is far past the time when the City and County should have correctly assessed fees that would have kept their transportation deficits to a reasonable amount they cry and threaten legal action.&nbsp; The big impact fee nest egg that should have been collected and reserved to compliment funding like the TRIP money never materialized.&nbsp; Then came the genius to ask the already overtaxed populous for its blessing on a 1/2% increase to our sales tax, and you all know the rest of the story.&nbsp; I say, OK, give them crying towel and let 'em sue like General Holding.&nbsp; It's time to call their &quot;bluffs.&quot;</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411783 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411783 <p><span style="font-size: small">For at least 15 years the development and growth&nbsp; machine has been steaming along with carte blanche approvals for the plethora of sprawling and leapfrogging projects that made them a bundle of profit ('course they didn't save enough of it&nbsp;to cover these&nbsp;bad economic times).&nbsp;With greed and avarice directing the show, developers and builders made a minimum&nbsp;of $100,000 per house and&nbsp;they were able to keep the prices under what should have been the correct market&nbsp; price because the development impact fees across the board were dirt cheap.&nbsp; That helped the complicit mortgage industry with loan approvals for people who couldn't afford it, and everybody made out like a bandit.&nbsp; The City and County were giddy with growth but the taxpayers will end up&nbsp;subsidizing those development and growth profits.&nbsp; &nbsp;And now, when it is far past the time when the City and County should have correctly assessed fees that would have kept their transportation deficits to a reasonable amount they cry and threaten legal action.&nbsp; The big impact fee nest egg that should have been collected and reserved to compliment funding like the TRIP money never materialized.&nbsp; Then came the genius to ask the already overtaxed populous for its blessing on a 1/2% increase to our sales tax, and you all know the rest of the story.&nbsp; I say, OK, give them crying towel and let 'em sue like General Holding.&nbsp; It's time to call their &quot;bluffs.&quot;</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Observer-</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Good question; I'm going to be fact-checking both sides' statements in coming days (or weeks or months, depending on how long this plays out!)</p> <p>The &quot;near doubling&quot; of fees isn't quite that simple, for example. The $7,066 current per-home fee in the city doesn't include all scenarios: if an &quot;added mitigation&quot; such as a general plan amendment was involved, the fee stands at $9,553.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>- Gretchen</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411791 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411791 <p>Observer-</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Good question; I'm going to be fact-checking both sides' statements in coming days (or weeks or months, depending on how long this plays out!)</p> <p>The &quot;near doubling&quot; of fees isn't quite that simple, for example. The $7,066 current per-home fee in the city doesn't include all scenarios: if an &quot;added mitigation&quot; such as a general plan amendment was involved, the fee stands at $9,553.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>- Gretchen</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><em>you don't have to sensationalize your stories ;)&nbsp;</em></p> <p>Ha!! So true...</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>One other small thing already...the HBA&nbsp;letter says the city &quot;plans to rely on only one&quot; &nbsp;method to match TRIP&nbsp;funds. Not quite right there either: the city put in place that pesky little Utility Franchise Tax (on your PG&amp;E&nbsp;bill) already. That's supposed to bring in close to $8 million this year.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>NOT&nbsp;to knee-jerk defend the city...it's like pulling teeth to nail down funding streams.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>This could be a classic exercise in industry propaganda versus government opacity. Fun for all!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>- Gretchen</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411799 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/citybeat/46078/#c_411799 <p><em>you don't have to sensationalize your stories ;)&nbsp;</em></p> <p>Ha!! So true...</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>One other small thing already...the HBA&nbsp;letter says the city &quot;plans to rely on only one&quot; &nbsp;method to match TRIP&nbsp;funds. Not quite right there either: the city put in place that pesky little Utility Franchise Tax (on your PG&amp;E&nbsp;bill) already. That's supposed to bring in close to $8 million this year.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>NOT&nbsp;to knee-jerk defend the city...it's like pulling teeth to nail down funding streams.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>This could be a classic exercise in industry propaganda versus government opacity. Fun for all!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>- Gretchen</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>