Kent business owners balk at new fees for roads, but city says street projects are at risk

(This is the first in a several-part series about Kent’s recently passed traffic-impact fees, and the balance that must be struck between bringing in development and the cost for expanded infrastructure.)

Kent resident Dennis Stoddard was certain he had his paperwork in order, on one of his last visits to the Kent Permit Center this summer. He was about to start improvements to the retail space for his new business, Black Dog Brat Haus & Creamery.

But as he stood at the City Hall counter that day, Stoddard was given something that made him “just kind of explode inside.”

It was a bill for $103,000.

That was the cost his business was being assessed under Kent’s newly passed traffic-impact fees. Passed 6-1 by the Council in July, the fees went into effect in August.

“It was totally out of the blue,” Stoddard recalled earlier this month, of the sticker shock he received at the counter back in August. “I was working with the city all summer. Nobody gave me any indication this was coming.”

Fortunately for Stoddard – “this (fee) was more than I wanted to invest in the whole business” – city staff went back and revisited the newly passed ordinance. It was determined that Stoddard’s business didn’t fall under the fee requirement, as it was pre-existing space that was part a larger retail complex.

Today, Stoddard is enthused to just be past the issue, so that he can devote himself to opening his new shop off of Washington Avenue near Rite Aid, hopefully after Thanksgiving.

“I’m grateful at this point,” he said. “I must have a guardian angel down there.”

But while it’s back to business for Stoddard, the Kent business community at large is nonplussed about the new traffic-impact fees.

“The fees are an absolute non-starter,” said Morgan Llewellyn, president of local real estate firm Llewelyn Real Estate, who said one of his own clients – a day-care business – pulled out of locating in Kent because of the fees.

“If they don’t change this, I’m gonna wish I never owned property in Kent,” he said. “This is going to be very counterproductive.”

Transportation projects in need of funding

If there is one thing both business and the City Council can probably agree on about Kent, it’s that the city’s roads need work. And from where the Kent City Council is sitting, that’s an issue that needs to be addressed now, rather than later.

“The answer is, no time is ever a good time,” said City Council President Jamie Perry, of implementing the fees, which are based on how much traffic a new business is expected to put onto Kent’s streets.

In accordance with state regulations, the city compiled its highest-priority traffic projects in what’s called a transportation master plan. But in the case of Kent’s circa-2008 plan, it’s beginning to develop dust, and the state is starting to take notice.

“It’s gotten to the point where we can’t sit on this anymore,” Perry said, noting that among other things, the city has a $10 million grant from the state Freight Mobility Transit Board, for a new railroad-grade project. If the city doesn’t move on this project soon, Perry said, that $10 million grant – which would cover about half the project – could be history.

City Public Works Director Tim LaPorte echoed Perry’s sentiment, noting the loss of state grant funding now could undo what’s been years of work.

“We have a dozen projects in public works that are in jeopardy,” he said. “We’ve had them for a long time and we have to come up with a match or give them back. We competed for a long time to get those grants. We’re talking about undoing 12 years of work to get those.”

That kind of loss also could undermine Kent’s ability to get much-needed grant dollars in the future, too. Right now, Perry noted, the city has a good batting average when it comes to fully utilizing grant dollars.

But when you start giving back grants, “that reputation starts going down,” she said. “Getting a grant in the future gets harder and harder.”

The traffic-impact fees, she noted, are a source of seed money for those traffic projects that are directly connected to economic expansion in Kent, and which have been identified as such in the master plan.

“If we don’t get matching money, we don’t get grants,” she said. “The impact fees are the start of that seed money you need.”

Perry also noted the other cities around Kent – among them Auburn, Covington, Des Moines, Federal Way and Renton – already have traffic-impact fees in place.

“We’re in fact one of the last cities,” she said, when it comes to charging the fees.

Llewellyn said the question shouldn’t be who is charging what fees.

“I think it would be important to ask a very different question,” he said. “Rather than compare yourself to other cities, the question should be, how do we make it easier for businesses to locate in this community?”

Kent, he said, is not only in the throes of a recession, but grappling with the threat of flooding in the Green River Valley, thanks to issues with the Howard Hanson Dam. These are already burdens on the city’s ability to attract new business, he noted. And now is not the time to add traffic-impact fees to the mix.

“When the market is booming and prices are rising, you can get developers to pay for these things,” he said. “But when the economy is imploding, you have to turn your thinking the other way.”

Mike Miller, president of Valley Bank of Kent, and a longtime Kent resident, said he understands the need for transportation funding, but now is simply not the time to be tacking additional fees, in the face of a recession, flood issues, and competition from the surrounding cities for new development.

“My feeling is, do a six-month moratorium,” he said of the fees. “This just isn’t the time to go out and put this together.”

Pointing out the top projects in the transportation master plan, many of which are highly expensive railroad-grade separations (they run about $10 million a piece) Miller also questioned the wisdom of undertaking such major projects at such a hard time in the economy.

“My question is, why start with the big projects when you can do the smaller projects for less?” he asked. “Can we really afford these grade crossings?”

Miller also claimed that in addition to worrying about developers finding somewhere else to put in new facilities, Kent’s already losing the businesses it has.

“It’s amazing how many vacancies there are right now,” Miller said, noting that in his own work contacting local businesses to discuss what his bank can offer them, he’s seeing a healthy amount of disconnected numbers.

Adding traffic-impact fees to new businesses that want to come to Kent just complicates things even more, he said.

“We want to be meeting these people with open arms here,” he said. “This is the first thing we’re throwing in their face. This is at a time in our economy when we don’t need additional road blocks.”

Perry, however, said that it’s the Council’s job to consider what is fairest to everyone in the picture – business as well as residents. And with a clock that is ticking on road projects that have been put off for years, it becomes increasingly important to make that call.

“The question is what’s best for our community as a whole, not just one piece of it,” she said.

NEXT WEEK

Part 2 of our Traffic-Impact Fee series will evaluate the stand the Kent Chamber of Commerce has taken on the matter, the Kent Mayor’s response, and a closer look at how the fees work, and what kinds of revenue they’re expected to generate.

Feel free to share your feelings about this topic by sending letters to the editor at letters@kentreporter.com, or via mail at Kent Reporter, 19426 68th Ave. S., Kent, WA 98032, or by commenting on this story on the Kent Reporter Web site at www.kentreporter.com