[Added 8-21-2017 by Order
No. 2017-089]
This article is enacted pursuant to the authority of 30-A M.R.S.A.
§§ 3001 and 4354.
The Westbrook City Council has determined that new development
creates demands on municipal government to provide new public facilities
and to expand or improve existing public facilities. The City Council
concludes that to provide an equitable source of funding for such
new, expanded, or improved facilities, it is appropriate to establish
a program of development impact fees and to charge a proportionate
share of the costs of new, expanded, or improved facilities to the
developers and/or occupants of the developments which make the new,
expanded, or improved infrastructure necessary.
Words and phrases shall be considered to have the same meaning
as defined in the Code of the City of Westbrook.
A.
Impact fees collected by the City pursuant to this article may be used only for financing facility improvements which the City Council has determined are made necessary by new development. The City Council has determined that fees imposed by schedules published by the City Clerk in accordance with § 335-16.9B of this article are reasonably related to the demands created by new development and are reasonably related to the portion or percentage of existing infrastructure used by new development. Impact fees collected pursuant to this article shall be used exclusively for capital improvements, and shall not be used for operational expenses. The City of Westbrook shall expend funds collected from impact fees solely for the purposes for which they were collected.
[Amended at time of adoption of Code (see Ch. 1, General
Provisions, Art. II)]
B.
The following costs may be included in the capital cost of the infrastructure
improvement:
(1)
Engineering, surveying, and environmental assessment services
directly related to the design, construction, and oversight of the
improvement;
(2)
The actual construction of the improvement, including, without
limitation, property acquisition costs, demolition costs, clearing
and grading of the land, and necessary capital equipment;
(3)
Mitigation costs;
(4)
Legal and administrative costs associated with construction
of the improvement, including any borrowing necessary to finance the
project;
(5)
Debt service costs, including interest if the City borrows for
the construction of the improvement;
(6)
Relocation costs; and
(7)
Similar costs that are directly related to the project.
Impact fees collected pursuant to this article shall be maintained
by the City Finance Director in a separate impact fee account and
shall be segregated from the City's general revenues. The City Finance
Director shall deposit impact fees in special nonlapsing accounts
dedicated for funding of the improvements for which the fee is collected.
The Code Enforcement Officer shall not issue any building permit required under the Code of the City of Westbrook until the applicant has paid any impact fees required by this article. Upon collecting such impact fee, the Code Enforcement Office shall remit the funds to the City Finance Director, who shall deposit the funds as required in § 335-16.5 above. The Code Enforcement Office shall make a record of the name and mailing address of the applicant paying the impact fee, the Tax Map and lot numbers of the property for which the impact fee is collected, the amount collected, and the date the impact fee is received, and shall maintain such record in the files relating to the property for which the impact fee was paid.
If a development undertakes improvements off-site from the project
site which improve the system that an impact fee is contributing towards,
the amount of the off-site improvements may be deducted from the calculated
impact fee or may be determined to be equivalent to the impact fee,
as determined by the City Planner.
[Amended at time of adoption of Code (see Ch. 1, General
Provisions, Art. II)]
Impact fees collected pursuant to this article shall be utilized by the City per the schedules published by the City Clerk in accordance with § 335-16.9B of this article for the completion of specific capital improvements, but in no event later than 10 years after the date upon which the impact fee was collected. Any impact fees which are not so utilized and any impact fees collected which exceed the City's actual costs of implementing the infrastructure improvements for which such fees were collected shall be refunded. Refunds shall be paid to the person who paid the impact fee, unless that person has authorized the payment to the current owner of the property or some other person.
The impact fees established in this article are based upon the
City Council's best estimates of the costs of the construction of
the facilities for which the fees are collected and, where appropriate,
upon estimates of state and/or federal funding contributions. The
Council may, by amendments to this article, change the amounts of
the impact fees from time to time as warranted by new information
or changed circumstances.
A.
Inflation adjustment. The impact fees established by the City Council
in this article shall be adjusted annually by the City Finance Director
to account for inflation. Commencing on February 1, 2018, and on each
February 1 thereafter, the Finance Director shall increase each impact
fee by the dollar amount (rounded to the nearest whole-dollar increment)
obtained by multiplying the amount of the fee then in effect by the
inflation rate. As used in this subsection, the term "inflation rate"
means the percentage increase, if any, during the previous calendar
year in the Consumer Price Index - All Urban Consumers, Northeast
Urban Area, All Items (1982-84 = 100 base) (not seasonally adjusted)
published by the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor
Statistics. If there has been no such increase, there shall be no
adjustment under this subsection.
B.
Each year on February 1, the City Clerk shall publish a schedule
of impact fees adjusted pursuant to this section (the "adjusted impact
fees") and provide a copy of such schedule to the Code Enforcement
Officer. The adjusted impact fees shall apply to all building permits
issued on or after February 1 of each calendar year, whether or not
the applications for building permits were filed prior to such dates.
An impact fee shall not be required for the following units,
provided that the number of bedrooms constructed in the new structure
is equal to or less than number of bedrooms in the structure being
replaced:
A.
The placement or construction on a lot of a dwelling unit which replaces
a dwelling unit which was located on the same lot at any time before
October 3, 2016;
B.
The placement on a mobile home park site of a mobile home which replaces
a mobile home which was located on the same site at any time before
October 3, 2016;
C.
The placement or construction on a lot of a dwelling unit which replaces
a dwelling unit which is or was located on the same lot and for which
an impact fee has already been paid under this article; or
D.
The placement on a mobile home park site of a mobile home which replaces
an existing mobile home which is or was located on the same site and
for which an impact fee has already been paid under this article.
