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The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christy Reese and her team here from the Movers Shakers, and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the full circle. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Full Circle Podcast. I'm your host, Christy Reese, and today we have four guests with us, and I'm gonna introduce everybody, and we're gonna talk about impact fees in the city of Grand Junction. So with us today, Candace Carnahan from the Grand Junctionary Chamber of Commerce, president and CEO. Hi, Candace. We've got Dave Hancock, owner and operator of Porter Homes, and a member of the H-B-O-H-B-A , uh, board with the Home Builders Association here , uh, Ron Alo , uh, president of Chaparral West Construction Company, and also on the board of the HBA. Welcome. I'm Kevin Bray from Bray Real Estate Development, the Director of Development and Executive board president at the HBA. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. Everyone. Don't forget to use your microphone if you wanna , uh, chat. So , um, I wanna start off by kind of explaining to our , uh, listeners and viewers what the purpose of an impact fee is. An impact fee is a one-time payment charged to new development to help ensure that the city can maintain the current levels of service our community expects as growth occurs. Impact fees offset the cost of new capital construction necessary to accommodate new development and growth. Impact fees can be used to offset costs for transportation infrastructure, municipal facilities, parks, public safety, like fire and police and affordable housing. So I think that's a, a city definition of the impact fees . Um, so the city council , um, voted last week to institute the impact fees, but that was a first reading. Right. And , uh, they are going to vote again on April 2nd. Candace, do you wanna explain a little bit about how that went?
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Uh, yes. Thank you, Christie . So , uh, this , uh, most recent meeting with city council was actually the second time that had come before them, but because of the fairly large adjustments following public comment and feedback from many of the stakeholders they see around this table and within the stakeholder group that they convened , uh, they chose to go back and , and issue it as a first reading so that there was more opportunity to finalize the decision. And so , um, there were staff recommendations that came from the original conversation that happened on February 19th , um, that were then , um, utilized in that final vote , uh, this past week , um, based on the feedback from the community mm-hmm
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. And so , uh, with the next vote on April 2nd City council meeting, there is an opportunity for community members to get involved, learn more about this topic, and give some input, correct?
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Absolutely. And I think the thing to keep in mind is you don't have to wait until April 2nd to give feedback. And in fact, I think it's more important to be engaging now during the process , uh, because that evening it's, it's, everyone's trying to process information in the moment, but to have meaning meaningful conversations with our elected officials and staff , uh, prior to that is really how , um, I think productive solutions come, come forward. And so I know all of us continue to be at the table because we have , um, been committed to a collaborative , uh, process from the beginning, which started back in August. So this has been a lengthy pro uh , process. Uh, but it's really important that we get this right because it does have impact on our communities. Uh , and we, we have to make sure that we're being very thoughtful and thinking through , um, not just how this benefits needs of the city, but potential pitfalls and side effects that , um, we, we could prevent. Uh , and we wanna make sure that we we're very aware of that.
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Thank you. Um, uh, Kevin, from your perspective as the president of the HBA, I mean, obviously we all want great roads, great , uh, safety services, all of those things, and we know that cost continue to rise. So how does the HBA view the potential increases in impact fees? And what's, what's your stance on that?
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So our stance on the impact fees, so, you know, and you'd mentioned that like the impact fees, they're , it's created by state statute and allows communities to use impact fees to , um, pay for some of the effects of growth. And I think part of that is different communities are funded in different ways. So some communities have challenges , um, in funding infrastructure, police and fire that maybe other communities don't. So this is an allowance that's made by the state statute. Uh, when they conduct the study, the study , um, you know, they, they have to choose sort of a method of study. In this case, they're using what's called the incremental method. And basically what it , what they're going for is , uh, the study even requires, like you, you sort of ignore all the other funding sources that you have , um, that are general, that aren't specific to those types of things. Mm-hmm . And the study then produces what the maximum legally defensible amount is. Um, so that's kind of like, how much can we charge,
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Right? And, and what data do we have? Which they hired a firm to produce some data to say, this is how we got to these maximum allowable fees.
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Yeah. So that's, so I think that's one, that's one, and that's an important piece of what has to happen. Statutorily free impact fees from an HBA standpoint, obviously we're very focused on housing affordability. Um, and these fees are, you know, they're choosing to use like new housing as, as a way to , um, pay for the fees. So we wanna make sure that they're , that the , the actual fees match what the needs are. So we've been like very assertive and concerned with, you know, we know the maximum legal amount. Is it being, is it , is the study being done correctly? And do we actually have that need in the community because it will, the cost will be put on new housing or new business expansion. And then that , that is a cost that , uh, basically the community bears mm-hmm
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. So the , um, the TCP fees were instituted in 2003, and before that , uh, infrastructure was funded with basically sales tax and property tax. But as the community grows and there's more need , um, finding other sources for funding and hence the impact fees. Um, Ron, from your perspective, how does, how do these fees impact your ability to deliver housing to our community? And, and talk about the difference between the maximum allowable fee and a smaller increase in the impact fees?
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Yeah. Well, it's , uh, the, the impact fees are direct cost , um, to construction. And I think one of the things that people fail to realize is we are currently paying significant impact fees and have been mm-hmm . For some years. And I think sometimes people think, well, you know, costs have gone up. It's like these fees have all been indexed to, well, for instance, the traffic impact fees are indexed to the CDOT road construction index of inflation. So they've been going up significantly every year. Uh , same with fa the facilities fees, like for police and fire. So our fees have been increasing all along, and it was actually represented to us they were gonna index them, so we wouldn't come back to where we are today, having to raise fees even higher. Mm-hmm . So the fees that we're paying right now are the fees that we should be paying based on the previous index. I mean, the previous , uh, nexus study that was done, and the frustrating part for us is they didn't take that into consideration. What they did is they did a new Nexus study to see how much they could legally defend mm-hmm . And that just adds , uh, an unfair burden on housing. So this will add thousands of dollars in additional costs over what we're already paying. That will directly impact , um, the price at which we can deliver housing. Mm-hmm . Which is pretty amazing already. It's pretty high.
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How has the increase in the average housing price being brought to market and new construction, how has that affected the impact fees? Did that raise the impact fees also? 'cause uh , many of them, based on the value of the house,
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No, they're not based on the value of a home. They're actually based on , uh, the Nexus study that was done five years ago. And , uh, and that was that one incremental as well.
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It's, it on , uh, on the square footage, it's
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Incremental. Yeah. They , yeah. So, so they've, they've , uh, tied them to the size of a home, not, not the cost or the price , um, that they're delivered at,
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But the increase in building costs has added significantly to housing prices as well. So in addition to those costs , uh, with the impact fees, it's getting harder and harder to bring affordable housing to our community.
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Oh yeah. In inflation and , uh, building materials , um, more materials than labor, but al also in labor, 'cause of the cost of living has gone up so much, you have to pay people more in order for them to be able to afford to live here. So that's had a significant impact as well. And the city doesn't have any control over that, and we understand that. Um, um, you know, at the same time, the state of Colorado has added significant costs through , uh, mandating , um, certain methods and that we have to employ in certain materials we have to employ into the construction of every home through the energy code and updating the IRC , um, they, they added in just the last three years, probably $15,000 to the price of , um, of your average, say, 1600 square foot home. Mm-hmm
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. Christie , I think it's important to just note that, you know, we surveyed our local workforce this last summer about housing and challenges and the down payment , uh, and qualifying for the loan was , uh, resoundingly the most difficult part of the process for those who responded to the survey. And we've spoken to local lenders who say that a $5,000 addition to a mortgage price can greatly impact the ability for new homeowners or , or homeowners in general to qualify for their loans. And so I think what we're hearing is when we hear maximum supportable amounts, it's what can we do versus what should we do knowing that we are in a housing crisis? And we cannot, as a community, as partners, as every, there are so many people holding pieces to this puzzle for attainable housing, we all are going to have to move into the uncomfortable space of giving because every dollar counts. And unfortunately, we , I think we hear partners across, across the board , uh, there's no single group that's that's solely responsible for this saying, well, it's just a dollar. It's just a dollar. And it really continues to add up. And, you know, speaking to local insurance experts here in our community, the average , uh, home insurance policy went up 30% in January, and that was before the wildfires started to impact our market. And we know that it will, because we are considered at higher risk for, for wildfires. So it's impact fees, it's building costs, it's insurance, it's all of the things, right? And so
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We all adding to the cost of home ownership.
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Exactly. So we have to really look at this and say, okay, what is absolutely critical that we pay for or make sure is covered with not just impact fees, but other sources of revenue , um, as a community and what is the responsible way to move forward to make sure that we aren't just compounding an already very deep hole that we are currently trying to climb out of , um, from a housing standpoint.
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Thank you, Candace. Dave, from your perspective , um, one of the things that Abe Herman talked about in his rebuttal to Diane Swinney's article in the paper was that developers need to pay their fair share developers and builders. How do you all in the HBA and you as a , a builder personally feel that , um, that fair share quote plays out?
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Well, currently, I feel that builders and developers are already paying their fair share in , in development costs. You know, we, we look at permitting a new development project, or even simply building a new custom home for somebody. And those fees are, are allocated for a reason. And I think the argument of everybody paying their fair share is notated a little too lightly. That that product is based back to the end user of the development. It gets tacked onto the cost of the land, the cost of the build. And, you know, it's not, it's not , um, it's not a group of greedy people who are trying to get to a different bracket of building or a community development. And quite frankly, I think that's overlooked far too much.
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Yeah. And I, having , um, been involved in a couple of developments myself , um, it , it is really difficult and it, it takes a lot of , um, takes a lot of money and time, and you have to be financially secure in order to do these projects. And so I think , um, just adding more cost to the, the buyer side of those projects , um, is gonna give developers pause. Would you say like, do I wanna go forward with this project, invest my time and money in this , uh, if I don't know that the , um, the buyers can build or can buy these homes with increased costs?
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Oh , absolutely. One thing to kind of think about too is it's , again, it's not just impact fees increasing, it's the building material. It's the labor involved, it's the insurance involved. We all want to, whether we're in a , um, a full custom build type of community, high-end custom homes, or we're trying to produce a product that is attainable in , in what we would consider a first time home buyer bracket. And I, I think that the, the more creative, I'm sorry, lemme digress. The more fees that are instituted towards building or developing, that's gonna require the developers and the builders to be more creative with each client and how to get there. And currently, you know, we're, we're doing that already. Mm-hmm . It's, it's a very difficult conversation just last month actually, or January, talking about micro pile type of foundations. For instance, if somebody doesn't know and they have a fixed budget for vertical construction that they're assuming, you know , I have to get pretty creative on how we get to that point of them actually being able to build it mm-hmm . And we're only, we're only exacerbating the issue by increasing further fees. Yeah.
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Yeah. Um, I'd like to hear from all of you on how you feel , um, increasing impact fees in the city of Grand Junction will affect migration of business because this is a commercial issue too, right? They're , they're going to increase , uh, impact fees on commercial structures , um, how that will affect people's migration to other areas of the county. Uh, maybe trying to avoid the impact fees that the city of Grand Junction is hoping to increase.
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Yes. Thanks Christie . And you're right, this does impact non-residential development as well. And I, and I do want to acknowledge that we've worked really closely with the city of Grand Junction, and the majority of categories are actually going to see a decrease in fees. But there are a couple that are still seeing substantial increases, 25%, 47%. And I think it's also really important to just call out that we say new development, but let's reclassify that because an existing business that wants to add on square footage will be assessed these fees. Mm-hmm . A business that wants to occupy a building, but change the use will have to pay the difference in these impact fees. And, and that can be really difficult, especially for small businesses that maybe find a great industrial warehouse space and wanna change it to a light retail space. They're going from the lowest use fee for transportation to the highest, and we're talking tens of thousands of dollars simply to just change how the building is going to be used. Nothing else has changed. And so it is very important that we're mindful of watching this, and we actually worked with partners to take a look at our competitiveness for surrounding communities like Montrose, like St . George Pueblo, Greeley, all these different areas. And I think what was fascinating is one, communities like Pueblo have moved away from impact fees. They're finding other ways to cover this, knowing that it can dampen economic development. Montrose is also exploring ways to minimize slash get rid of impact fees altogether. And in the other areas that we compared, we were pushing the boundaries and if not leading the way in most of these impact fees and businesses have a choice of where they want to locate mm-hmm . And where they wanna stay. So it's, it's a concern to make sure not only are we remaining attractive for new industry, but we have to keep the industry that is here. And as things continue to climb, again by a per 1000 square foot basis, it can really add up. And again, it will be the difference between opening their doors or choosing to go somewhere else. Which there are a lot of other communities that are very aggressively saying, come do business here. And we have to make sure that we're continuing to position ourselves. So one, I applaud the city's work over the last two weeks to really look at bringing those back to an , a competitive , um, range with the fees. But it's something that we still wanna be very mindful of because we do not want to say that it is not friendly to do business here. If you have a retail shop, you're, you know, we, we wanna make sure that we're, we're being very competitive in that arena.
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So Yeah. Same question to you, Kevin.
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Yeah. Just , uh, and , um, just kind a , a little bit different perspective, I think on that. Um, one is the, like our area is very attractive area to be. I mean, we, we all sitting around the table, we all know that , uh, there's a lot of things to love, but when you think about, you know, from my, from my standpoint, you think about what is really attractive about , uh, our area. You know, you have things that are really major attractors , like jobs, like jobs being available is something that attracts people to a region. Um, housing , um, you know, for a long time we were very competitive on, on being a place where you can get really affordable housing. I think we're still relatively attractive to a lot of areas where they have higher housing,
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Especially in the state of Colorado. Yeah .
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Overall, yeah . So like housing is still like that, that is one of those attract . And I think you have other things too, like healthcare , um, the higher education, like CMU, like having a university, like we have some really big attract now. We also have some great parks. Um, that's, that's nice. Those are really nice amenities to have. But to the level that, that is the attractor, I would say like a rec center, the rec center that's being built, that is going to be an , an attractor as well. Roads , um, police and fire, those are very important for your community. But those are, we have an expectation that those are, that those are well maintained , um, et cetera . So those are , those are important as well. But those aren't necessarily, I think the , what's attract attracting people. So it's kinda a long answer to the question, but we also have sort of an agreement, and this is just structurally how the , it works with the city and the county, and it's called the 2 0 1 boundary and the urban growth boundary. And so most of the development is going to occur within that urban growth boundary because of that, because there is not much density that's allowed in the county other than areas like in unincorporated Clifton and like Whitewater. There's a few places where we can have density mm-hmm . But we, we not , don't really have that option. So it's, we're somewhat captive by the 2 0 1 boundary in the city. So we will continue to have people to move here. Uh, what I, my concern is more just the people that are here are gonna continually be priced out. And you hear a lot of times people say, well, it's only, it's only $6,000, or it's only $8,000 on a $400,000, $500,000 house. I go, yeah. And that is not, that is not grossly affecting the price if you're looking at a percentage standpoint. But it absolutely will remove people from being able to make that,
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Well, it either has to be absorbed by the builder and developer, or passed on to the homeowner. And as we mentioned earlier, like building and developing the numbers really matter. You know , um, if you're gonna commit your time and energy and money to a project, you have a certain expectation of , um, return or you're not going in. And so it really has to be passed on to the homeowner. And it's , uh, it's, yeah. That's problematic.
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Yeah . And it also makes me think a little about kind of what Dave was saying. You know , Dave, you were mention , you were mentioning that you bill for , uh, people from sort of the attainable price point all the way to like the multimillion dollar home. And, you know, I would, I would, I would just kind of expect, I imagine even when you're building for somebody with that multimillion dollar home, they're still making choices. Like they have a lot of wants, but they don't necessarily get everything they want. They, they, like all your buyers probably have to make a choice. And in some ways they , the impact fee is, it's taking the choice away from the buyer, and it's saying, you're going to pay this amount for these things that , you know, it's , in a way, it's a form of like social engineering to just, to do it that way instead of the way we have done it in the past was asking voters to approve infrastructure, et cetera . But yeah, like I'm the choice.
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I, I couldn't agree more. And quite frankly, I would argue the point of most people who are building a multimillion dollar home, those are business owners. Those are, are people who are bringing a different level of investments to Mesa County. And they're very aware of how that money is being spent, not just on their residential home build, but also in, in giving them an idea of how to invest their money in Grand Junction. And so I would make the argument that while we have a couple different categories of attainable versus a full, you know, multimillion dollar custom home , the people who are able to afford the larger home, they're just as aware of their budget for that construction, and they're even more involved.
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We don't, it's very rare that you get , uh, uh, someone coming in and buying and saying, my budget is unlimited.
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Oh yeah. I've, I've yet to see that. I would love it. But , what's, what's, what's , uh, what are the odds of that happening,
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Ron, what about the question that the, the weight of , um, expansion of services to accommodate the growth of our communities should be born mostly by new construction and not the residents that already own homes. So that's the argument for not raising property taxes. Right. And nobody wants their taxes to go up, but how do you weigh those two?
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Well, and , and I've looked at this quite a bit, and the impact fee argument is based on what I call a fiction, a fiction. That new development does not pay its own way. But , but if you'll notice, the city did not ask for a study on that. They asked for a study that, that measures this to acquire a result of how much can they legally defend, not, it's not needs based . And if you look at new development, new development, more than pays its own way. And , um, I was just pulling up some numbers. These are from a study that the NAHB did, the National Association of Home Builders. But , uh, you know, the, the, the first first year annual revenues generated by a hundred new homes is , uh, over $28 million. And , uh, and it creates 394 jobs. And then the, the recurring, so the revenue stream that's re that's recurring every year is over $4 million. Now, this is an average, it's gonna vary from state to state or, or local to , uh, regional area to regional area. But , um, uh, you know, again, 6 69 more jobs, you , you build a a hundred houses and it generates service requirements for 69 new jobs. So , um, nobody wants to talk about the fact that, that we already are paying more than our fair share. Our new development covers the costs of services that are required by the city. What it does though, with what impact fees do is they bring revenue to the city, and they move it in their budget from non-real, which is they have to build roads now for any part of the road construction. And those type of services that we're expanding moves the equal amount of money into discretionary spending, where the city can spend it on things that they're outside of core services. This is a point that Kevin brought up some time ago, is what is the city doing that's outside of core services that they need more money for? And I think, again, a study on what the city is spending its money on outside of core services and a study on how much revenue and how much positive impact that new development brings to an area are, are those are studies that would have to be done in order to really make an informed decision on this.
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I think Ron brings up a really great point that we've all discussed and have questions about and continue to just need to dive a little bit deeper on, you know, making sure that, again, when we're in a time, and I keep saying we're , we are in a housing crisis, we're not getting to it, we're there now , um, that's really when you have to get down to basics and make sure priorities are the main focus, right? You , your businesses do this every day . Um, make sure that your, your core , uh, mission, your core services , um, your priorities are taken care of first. And that's really important when you're looking at , um, adding costs in any sort of way to a community, whether it's a tax increase, a fee increase, it's really important to have the basics covered in a healthy, sustainable way. And so we wanna make sure through all these conversations that, that, that is the case. Um, because, and that's why we had questions about the way, for instance, the transportation fee was, was being looked at originally, is just making sure that we, we are doing the basics first, foremost and at a high level. And if there are additional funds that can be moved to a discretionary purpose, that we know that we've done all we can to impact our workforce getting into houses. When I hear that 40% of our workforce is using 30% of their household income and 7% is using 50% of their household income, that's not something our community should be okay with. And so if we have a card in our back pocket to play, that can positively impact that. We should at this point , there's, there's no more hands to hold it on. Like, this is the time to be all in , um, as a community, as elected officials, as stakeholders saying all cards are on the table, and what can we do?
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I, I do want to give kudos to the city council for convening the stakeholder group. I think that was a really great part of the process. How well do you think , um, that group was set up for success, and how well do you think that group was able to deliver information to the city council that the , and did the city council listen to their recommendations? And how has that process gone in your eyes?
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I wasn't on it,
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So yeah, I wasn't on the stakeholder committee, but I did fill in for two of the four meetings for people that couldn't be on it. So I got, I, I got a piece of it. Uh , I think , uh, one thing is that the, the scope of the committee was really, it's like looking at the methodology mm-hmm . Um, but they hired a consultant for, you know, it was $170,000 to hire the consultant to do the study. And this was , it's very technical sort of granular type thing . So there wasn't much that the stakeholder committee was really like, capable of, of weighing in on, I would say , um, from sort of past experiences , uh, they did , um, I think at city , uh, manager Mike Bennett had suggested, but they did do a stakeholder meeting with the city council. I think that was very effective, very transparent, and I thought that was a, I thought that was a great part of the process. And I do think that they did look at some things and they made some revisions based on that. Um, the other thing that I would say about the, the stakeholder group, I think they kind of threw , they put every, like, everything in the kitchen, in the , in the original study. So it originally started as linkage fees, as municipal fees, and even like just using the city's own like survey that they had put out, like linkage fee ranked one out of a hundred on a priority basis , um, that they had put out to stakeholders even before the process. Mm-hmm . So I thought that was a little bit of a distraction , um, that those, that that was included, a municipal fee that's to , uh, from the HBA standpoint, we thought clearly that's something they should be asking voters for. Um, so had those not been included, there would've been sort of less, there would've been a lot less pages mm-hmm . Um, and I think people would've been , been able to sort of focus in on what we're, where , where we're at today in terms of what we're talking about. So it made a little bit difficult. It was a lot, a lot of , um, information and hard for the group to digest mm-hmm
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. Yeah. You know, as a member of the stakeholder group, I , I would agree, it's very dense information and data, and you always run into challenges when, you know, the consultant's job is to , to present the data that they're collecting. And oftentimes it comes down to the policy side of things to really know what, okay, what are you going to do with all these numbers and figures and things that have been collected? And, and we know that data can look different from the perspective that you're looking from. And so , um, while I think we did get off to a slower start , uh, I would agree that the meeting with city Council was something that we had not seen in recent memory and was so impactful and, and really valuable. I know we were all very grateful for that opportunity because it wasn't , um, just to sit and listen. It was a true dialogue with council . And I think that everyone at that table was able to express questions, concerns, statements of support that helped us start to really pick up the pace on the movement of, of where this was headed. Um, you could see the speed of which, you know, how responses were being handled at that point. And I think that's a great thing to hopefully see in the future as well, because , um, we have so much expertise in this community, and that's why they bring together these stakeholder groups because you have so many , um, amazing people within the community. And so leaning on that expertise is critical. Uh, and I will say feedback since then seems to , um, really be getting received and discussed. And again, we are not across the finish line yet, but I am hopeful that we continue to have that collaborative nature that we saw from that first joint meeting and, and get this across the finish line in a way that our community is able to move forward in a healthy manner , um, but in a sustainable manner. Because no one around this table or in the stakeholder group is advocating for , um, less maintenance of roads or less focus on public safety. That is absolutely not the conversation here. It's saying, are we using all of our resources
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Are using our resources and what is actually necessary? Yeah .
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Yep . Exactly.
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Yeah . Yeah. What are we in need of , um, the common sense institute, which was , uh, there at the , um, housing summit, which was a great event. Thank you for helping with that, Kevin. Um, uh, they spoke about all kinds of things that day, but I was reading their findings on the proposed impact fees, and they said their three biggest findings will are that it will reduce housing supply, it will raise home prices, and it will reduce home ownership rates. Do you all agree with that and you wanna comment on that?
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Um, so I , I think to me, it's just a practical thing. You know, if the prices of oranges goes up, fewer oranges will get purchased. And I think that's the same with housing. People are trying to afford housing, and I think, I mean, you would know this more than me working with people every day , but they're get , they're trying to get approved for a house they can't afford mm-hmm . And when you, when that price goes up, it's, it's, there's gonna take a certain number of people out of the equation. So yeah, I could see that could affect home ownership. I think the counter argument that to that though is it's always a , well, it's only 1% of the total or 2%. I think that removes the , the individual from the experience, you know, it's, it's going to remove some people from the market. And , and what I see is we do have a lot of migration and we're pretty flat on natural growth in the community. So in essence, to me, it's not okay that only people coming from outside the community who are typically coming from a higher housing market and they're using equity to purchase here, that's not a reason for us to say it's okay to raise fees. We really should be considering who lives here , um, those our kids that we want to be able to live here. And it's, it's also never, it's not just this fee, but it's also this fee and, and the , you know, the code change that we had last week and the Teds thing and the , and that it , it all adds up. And, and so the argument is always, well, this isn't going to affect, this isn't gonna affect it as much as you say,
00:36:03.954 --> 00:36:05.485
It's not the only fee that's going
00:36:05.485 --> 00:36:30.764
Up, but that is constantly a good reason to not do something that's gonna make housing cost more just because it's not a , it's not the biggest reason. Um , we should still be, I think, assertive about costs and, and we want people to experience the American dream of home ownership. Um , it comes with it a lot of benefits to the individual, and that's something that we should be protective of as a community.
00:36:31.204 --> 00:37:57.045
Absolutely. Kevin, I just think it's important too, when you mentioned migration is I talk to employers regularly who have workforce that have migrated here to use your term, have been here for a year, 18 months, have not been able to get into a home, and are now having to resign their positions and leave the community. And these are highly skilled jobs. We know that it's impacting skillable up and down the board. But to your point, even those who come into the area are finding it challenging to find housing and, and, you know, our workforce is dependent on that. It's so intertwined, and that's why we at the Chamber, while the commercial impact fees are moving in the right direction, are still gravely concerned about the impact fees on residential because , um, creating jobs is wonderful, but if we can't have housing for those filling the jobs, it , it's a moot point at that, that time. And , um, you know, it's something that we have to keep, keep an eye on. And we don't want , uh, residents that have had generations here in the valley to know that their kids cannot stay in the valley. And we hear those, I know you all hear those stories, but we hear those stories as well. And again, that is a big part of our workforce of , uh, folks grown up here, whether they went to college or not, or maybe just dove dove right into their careers. We want them to be able to plant their roots and stay here. And right now that's not possible. Yeah.
00:37:57.284 --> 00:38:48.005
And , and you know, I, I don't know the data on this, but it , I do wonder sometimes if that has something to do with our declining enrollment here, is that the young people that are, you know, graduating or, or going on to learn a , a trade or whatever, as they look at they're growing their family, they, they actually have to move somewhere else. Mm-hmm . Uh , because they're just not able to for the housing. And I look back at when I bought my first house, and I know that is not attainable like that, that ratio of what I was making as a very beginning wage to the home, that ratio no longer exists. And I think it's really sad for , um, our ability to, you know, I even think my , it's gonna be a while before my kids are at a home buying age, but I'm still worried about, you know, what that's gonna look like for them. My
00:38:48.005 --> 00:38:57.605
Kids are worried about it. They're 20 and 17 and we talk about it a lot. I'm not the one that puts the fear into them, but they read the news and they, they are worried about it.
00:38:58.275 --> 00:40:41.405
Yeah. I think the discussion , uh, seems to get centered on new homes because the fee is tied to new homes. One of the things that , um, doesn't make it into the discussion is the fact that new homes are what determines the price for existing housing stock. And as the price in new homes, it's like, 'cause a home that was built 30 years ago didn't cost what it sells for today. How did it get to where it's at? If, if it's all tied to that, it's like, because as the price of a new home goes up, it drags all of the other values up with it. And it's just the same as rents. As, as new homes go up, people buy homes as investments. Those rents are based on a cap rate tied to the value of that home. So rents go up. So this, when we drive the cost of new homes up, we, we , we drive the cost of all the existing , the most affordable housing stock we have will increase mm-hmm . At even at the lowest levels. And rents will do the same thing all the way down to the lowest rents we have. So it's, it's an affordability rate in housing across the board, not just new homes. And, and that's not something that I hear discussed much in this. And as a matter of fact, the council has just simply ignored that fact because I have brought it up to them more than once. And I, I really think it needs to be part of the discussion, because unlike oranges, housing is essential if I'm, if if oranges, if it freezes in Florida and oranges go up, I can switch to something else. You should be talking about peaches though. I mean, we're , we are in Grand Junction, right? , well , not eggs well , yeah . Yeah. Well, I quit eating eggs, so Yeah. So, so you know, you have some choices there, but housing is not one you have a choice in. You may have a choice of what type of housing, but you are going to have to live somewhere.
00:40:42.315 --> 00:40:42.764
Good point.
00:40:43.315 --> 00:41:51.005
Yeah. And I can vouch for that. Being 33 years old, my wife and I are currently experiencing that type of issue. You know, we, we could tap into the equity in our home currently and, and make a play. But if we're to move in a , a certain direction to meet the goals and the parameters that we've set together as a family, you know, that that goal set is very, very tight. The option set is very, very tight. And so then we kind of have to go back to the , the drawing board and figure out what takes priority overall. Yeah. Actually, I wanted to digress a little bit further back to the argument they made regarding builders and developers paying their own way . I also heard at that council meeting, we want the people coming from out of town, whether it's in-state, coming out from Denver, Colorado Springs, you name it, or from outta state entirely. They want them to pay their fair share. I would love to see the data that would compare how many people coming in from out of town there are, versus how many people locally that have been here for a decade or more that are still feeling the same, the same problems. Mm-hmm .
00:41:52.184 --> 00:43:37.764
So I , so I , if you guys will allow, I wanted to just tell a little story. Absolutely . Um, just recently in the last couple weeks, I had a young man that his family , family friend , um, he's , uh, graduated from high school now and, and looking at college and trade school. And he came , he wanted to come into my office and talk about an idea that he had , um, which is a roommate situation where they were looking at maybe getting on the mortgage together and buying a house. And , um, my wife knew that he was coming in and somebody else had put a bug on her ear. I hope Kevin talks him out of that. Um, because traditionally, you know, you think about like owning a house with a roommate and , uh, you know, as, as a parent, as a mentor, you think, well, this is, this is kind of a recipe for conflict and like, you know , owning a house together. Um, but it really made me think, it really made me challenge that idea because I thought otherwise, his other option is wait for five or six or seven years while he's paying rent, which is gonna continue to go up and then hopefully be able to afford his own house. And this gives, this would give him a shot at a piece of the home ownership high to, to build equity like that we all know is, is important for people. And so I didn't give the advice that my wife was hoping that I would give, because I see like, this is what, this is maybe the new reality for kids that are, they want that American dream and they have to be realistic as well. So I just thought that was, it was interesting 'cause it's not what I would hope to have, like, be recommending something like that. Mm-hmm .
00:43:37.835 --> 00:44:17.324
Well, that's a prime example of how we have to be creative in other ways where we're trying to, we're kind of held, held ho hostage to a degree by a municipal level and builders and developers, we have to be , uh, malleable to those , um, uh, parameters that are set. And we have, we have to be the ones that are creative on behalf of our client and building 'em a new home, or whether or not that's a 1600 square foot, $400,000 house, or, or a 10,000 square foot, $4 million house. And so that's a prime example of how we need to start having some conver conversations with the younger generations and figuring out how we can get creative to make something like that possible for them during
00:44:17.324 --> 00:45:23.434
The housing summit. I think, you know, the biggest takeaway that we all felt when we left there was , uh, there's no, there's no simple , uh, solution to the housing crisis that we're facing here in our community or across the country , uh, whatever community you're in. Um, but I think all of us at this table agree that increasing fees for building new construction is not going to make the situation better. It's going to hurt that. And, and it's a topic on everyone's mind and agenda, right? It is all over the country , um, trying to keep the cost of housing down, and yet we're looking at increasing the fees. So , um, as we wrap up , um, you're welcome to add any other comments, but , um, talk about how people can get involved in the conversation. Uh, what can they do to educate themselves on the topic more, to make sure they're fully informed and , um, how can they have their voices heard?
00:45:26.614 --> 00:47:09.355
You know, I'm, if you know me, I always say start with a question. I think it's important for our businesses, our community members to ask questions. It , you can come to your own conclusion, that's fine. But it's important that you, those conclusions are based on data and information and hearing a , a number of perspectives in, in the conversation. So I would say reach out to HBA, reach out to the chamber, reach out to the city and, and get information. Um, all of the proposed fees , um, are part of their council member packets. Um, and so they're printed online and easy to, to, to get your hands on. But I think reach out and ask questions , um, and then turn around and ask questions back to your elected officials to make sure that they understand. Um, maybe you don't have a, a strong feeling either way, but at least let them know that there are question marks still surrounding this topic. And for those of us that have been living and breathing this for, you know, the better part of almost a year, it's, it's important for us to continue to ask those questions until the very end, because there are still a number of unanswered loose ends that we , I don't think can move forward in an informed way that we know exactly what those outcomes are going to look like, nor can we truly , um, say the juice is worth the squeeze, quite frankly. And so , uh, I think that for all of us, we have to just continue to move forward , um, through curiosity on this topic and making sure that we, we've really explored all of the nooks and crannies because it is very complex.
00:47:11.594 --> 00:48:29.244
Um, yeah, I would say , um, and just sort of emphasizing on the , on the part of what Candace is saying , um, I , I have a , I have a class that I teach at development and, and my favorite part of that class is bringing them to city council and them realizing that it isn't, they, a lot of people, you know, they, they get a , they talk online amongst each other and they say they are doing this, they're doing this. But city council are real people and they are responsive and they, they do care about the community. And that's what I would say to people is if you would email a city council person, you should expect, I would expect they all will all reply to emails mm-hmm . And you, you don't need to know the exact , um, application of the study or the methodology to let a city council person know that you think h like housing affordability is important. And they do, it does make a difference. And they do listen and they, and they do respond. And that's what I think is, is a , um, hugely underutilized , um, aspect of this city council is that they , they are real human beings and they do respond and they are available.
00:48:29.335 --> 00:48:31.525
Thank you for pointing that out. Yeah , yeah,
00:48:33.434 --> 00:49:02.125
Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that statement. And I'll speak for myself here. If anybody's listening and they have questions, comments, concerns, feel free to reach out to me. Feel free to reach out to your , uh, local HBA, start talking to your real estate agents. Talk , start talking to your builders, talk to the developers. 'cause we all live this day in and day out. The more educated that we can become as a community, the better off we are in , in finding real solutions to the broken arm rather than putting a bandaid on it.
00:49:03.755 --> 00:49:49.885
Yeah. I think , uh, the city has , uh, dj speaks.com as well, right? Mm-hmm . Uh , that you can , um, go on and uh , make comments. And , uh, I think the question , uh, you brought up asking a question and the question is how does this help the housing affordability issue? And , and , um, I would be interested to hear an answer from someone how that that helps, because I don't think it does. And I think that's just a great question. Um, if that is a priority, which they all say it's a priority mm-hmm . But the actions don't match up with what they're saying. And , um, I think other things get prioritized over it. 'cause they do have a certain amount of discretionary spending they have. And would this not be a great place to use that discretion instead of increasing the fees for housing?
00:49:50.324 --> 00:50:18.244
Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, well, the April 2nd , uh, city council meeting ought to be very well attended. Um, and we encourage everybody to get involved and make your voices heard. So thank you to all of you today for participating in this discussion. And , um, wanna encourage , uh, everybody again to , um, speak out, educate yourselves on this issue, and make sure you understand how it can affect housing affordability in our community.
00:50:18.775 --> 00:50:19.244
Thank you.
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Thank you, Christy . Yep .
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Alright everybody, we'll see you next time on the Full Circle podcast again. Um , reach out to any of our panelists here today. Uh, Candace Carnahan, Dave Hancock, Ron Avalo , and Kevin Bray. Uh, they all be willing to, and , and myself as well. We're all willing to speak on this topic and how it affects our community. So reach out and , uh, we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is Christy Reese signing out from the Full Circle Podcast .
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The Full Circle podcast, compelling interviews and incredible tales from Colorado's Western Slope, from the mountains to the desert. Christy Reese and her team here from the Movers Shakers, and characters of the Grand Valley and surrounding mountain towns that make the Western slope the place we all love. You'll learn, you'll laugh, you'll love with the full circle. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Full Circle Podcast. I'm your host, Christy Reese, and today we have four guests with us, and I'm gonna introduce everybody, and we're gonna talk about impact fees in the city of Grand Junction. So with us today, Candace Carnahan from the Grand Junctionary Chamber of Commerce, president and CEO. Hi, Candace. We've got Dave Hancock, owner and operator of Porter Homes, and a member of the H-B-O-H-B-A , uh, board with the Home Builders Association here , uh, Ron Alo , uh, president of Chaparral West Construction Company, and also on the board of the HBA. Welcome. I'm Kevin Bray from Bray Real Estate Development, the Director of Development and Executive board president at the HBA. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. Everyone. Don't forget to use your microphone if you wanna , uh, chat. So , um, I wanna start off by kind of explaining to our , uh, listeners and viewers what the purpose of an impact fee is. An impact fee is a one-time payment charged to new development to help ensure that the city can maintain the current levels of service our community expects as growth occurs. Impact fees offset the cost of new capital construction necessary to accommodate new development and growth. Impact fees can be used to offset costs for transportation infrastructure, municipal facilities, parks, public safety, like fire and police and affordable housing. So I think that's a, a city definition of the impact fees . Um, so the city council , um, voted last week to institute the impact fees, but that was a first reading. Right. And , uh, they are going to vote again on April 2nd. Candace, do you wanna explain a little bit about how that went?
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Uh, yes. Thank you, Christie . So , uh, this , uh, most recent meeting with city council was actually the second time that had come before them, but because of the fairly large adjustments following public comment and feedback from many of the stakeholders they see around this table and within the stakeholder group that they convened , uh, they chose to go back and , and issue it as a first reading so that there was more opportunity to finalize the decision. And so , um, there were staff recommendations that came from the original conversation that happened on February 19th , um, that were then , um, utilized in that final vote , uh, this past week , um, based on the feedback from the community mm-hmm
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. And so , uh, with the next vote on April 2nd City council meeting, there is an opportunity for community members to get involved, learn more about this topic, and give some input, correct?
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Absolutely. And I think the thing to keep in mind is you don't have to wait until April 2nd to give feedback. And in fact, I think it's more important to be engaging now during the process , uh, because that evening it's, it's, everyone's trying to process information in the moment, but to have meaning meaningful conversations with our elected officials and staff , uh, prior to that is really how , um, I think productive solutions come, come forward. And so I know all of us continue to be at the table because we have , um, been committed to a collaborative , uh, process from the beginning, which started back in August. So this has been a lengthy pro uh , process. Uh, but it's really important that we get this right because it does have impact on our communities. Uh , and we, we have to make sure that we're being very thoughtful and thinking through , um, not just how this benefits needs of the city, but potential pitfalls and side effects that , um, we, we could prevent. Uh , and we wanna make sure that we we're very aware of that.
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Thank you. Um, uh, Kevin, from your perspective as the president of the HBA, I mean, obviously we all want great roads, great , uh, safety services, all of those things, and we know that cost continue to rise. So how does the HBA view the potential increases in impact fees? And what's, what's your stance on that?
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So our stance on the impact fees, so, you know, and you'd mentioned that like the impact fees, they're , it's created by state statute and allows communities to use impact fees to , um, pay for some of the effects of growth. And I think part of that is different communities are funded in different ways. So some communities have challenges , um, in funding infrastructure, police and fire that maybe other communities don't. So this is an allowance that's made by the state statute. Uh, when they conduct the study, the study , um, you know, they, they have to choose sort of a method of study. In this case, they're using what's called the incremental method. And basically what it , what they're going for is , uh, the study even requires, like you, you sort of ignore all the other funding sources that you have , um, that are general, that aren't specific to those types of things. Mm-hmm . And the study then produces what the maximum legally defensible amount is. Um, so that's kind of like, how much can we charge,
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Right? And, and what data do we have? Which they hired a firm to produce some data to say, this is how we got to these maximum allowable fees.
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Yeah. So that's, so I think that's one, that's one, and that's an important piece of what has to happen. Statutorily free impact fees from an HBA standpoint, obviously we're very focused on housing affordability. Um, and these fees are, you know, they're choosing to use like new housing as, as a way to , um, pay for the fees. So we wanna make sure that they're , that the , the actual fees match what the needs are. So we've been like very assertive and concerned with, you know, we know the maximum legal amount. Is it being, is it , is the study being done correctly? And do we actually have that need in the community because it will, the cost will be put on new housing or new business expansion. And then that , that is a cost that , uh, basically the community bears mm-hmm
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. So the , um, the TCP fees were instituted in 2003, and before that , uh, infrastructure was funded with basically sales tax and property tax. But as the community grows and there's more need , um, finding other sources for funding and hence the impact fees. Um, Ron, from your perspective, how does, how do these fees impact your ability to deliver housing to our community? And, and talk about the difference between the maximum allowable fee and a smaller increase in the impact fees?
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Yeah. Well, it's , uh, the, the impact fees are direct cost , um, to construction. And I think one of the things that people fail to realize is we are currently paying significant impact fees and have been mm-hmm . For some years. And I think sometimes people think, well, you know, costs have gone up. It's like these fees have all been indexed to, well, for instance, the traffic impact fees are indexed to the CDOT road construction index of inflation. So they've been going up significantly every year. Uh , same with fa the facilities fees, like for police and fire. So our fees have been increasing all along, and it was actually represented to us they were gonna index them, so we wouldn't come back to where we are today, having to raise fees even higher. Mm-hmm . So the fees that we're paying right now are the fees that we should be paying based on the previous index. I mean, the previous , uh, nexus study that was done, and the frustrating part for us is they didn't take that into consideration. What they did is they did a new Nexus study to see how much they could legally defend mm-hmm . And that just adds , uh, an unfair burden on housing. So this will add thousands of dollars in additional costs over what we're already paying. That will directly impact , um, the price at which we can deliver housing. Mm-hmm . Which is pretty amazing already. It's pretty high.
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How has the increase in the average housing price being brought to market and new construction, how has that affected the impact fees? Did that raise the impact fees also? 'cause uh , many of them, based on the value of the house,
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No, they're not based on the value of a home. They're actually based on , uh, the Nexus study that was done five years ago. And , uh, and that was that one incremental as well.
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It's, it on , uh, on the square footage, it's
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Incremental. Yeah. They , yeah. So, so they've, they've , uh, tied them to the size of a home, not, not the cost or the price , um, that they're delivered at,
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But the increase in building costs has added significantly to housing prices as well. So in addition to those costs , uh, with the impact fees, it's getting harder and harder to bring affordable housing to our community.
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Oh yeah. In inflation and , uh, building materials , um, more materials than labor, but al also in labor, 'cause of the cost of living has gone up so much, you have to pay people more in order for them to be able to afford to live here. So that's had a significant impact as well. And the city doesn't have any control over that, and we understand that. Um, um, you know, at the same time, the state of Colorado has added significant costs through , uh, mandating , um, certain methods and that we have to employ in certain materials we have to employ into the construction of every home through the energy code and updating the IRC , um, they, they added in just the last three years, probably $15,000 to the price of , um, of your average, say, 1600 square foot home. Mm-hmm
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. Christie , I think it's important to just note that, you know, we surveyed our local workforce this last summer about housing and challenges and the down payment , uh, and qualifying for the loan was , uh, resoundingly the most difficult part of the process for those who responded to the survey. And we've spoken to local lenders who say that a $5,000 addition to a mortgage price can greatly impact the ability for new homeowners or , or homeowners in general to qualify for their loans. And so I think what we're hearing is when we hear maximum supportable amounts, it's what can we do versus what should we do knowing that we are in a housing crisis? And we cannot, as a community, as partners, as every, there are so many people holding pieces to this puzzle for attainable housing, we all are going to have to move into the uncomfortable space of giving because every dollar counts. And unfortunately, we , I think we hear partners across, across the board , uh, there's no single group that's that's solely responsible for this saying, well, it's just a dollar. It's just a dollar. And it really continues to add up. And, you know, speaking to local insurance experts here in our community, the average , uh, home insurance policy went up 30% in January, and that was before the wildfires started to impact our market. And we know that it will, because we are considered at higher risk for, for wildfires. So it's impact fees, it's building costs, it's insurance, it's all of the things, right? And so
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We all adding to the cost of home ownership.
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Exactly. So we have to really look at this and say, okay, what is absolutely critical that we pay for or make sure is covered with not just impact fees, but other sources of revenue , um, as a community and what is the responsible way to move forward to make sure that we aren't just compounding an already very deep hole that we are currently trying to climb out of , um, from a housing standpoint.
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Thank you, Candace. Dave, from your perspective , um, one of the things that Abe Herman talked about in his rebuttal to Diane Swinney's article in the paper was that developers need to pay their fair share developers and builders. How do you all in the HBA and you as a , a builder personally feel that , um, that fair share quote plays out?
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Well, currently, I feel that builders and developers are already paying their fair share in , in development costs. You know, we, we look at permitting a new development project, or even simply building a new custom home for somebody. And those fees are, are allocated for a reason. And I think the argument of everybody paying their fair share is notated a little too lightly. That that product is based back to the end user of the development. It gets tacked onto the cost of the land, the cost of the build. And, you know, it's not, it's not , um, it's not a group of greedy people who are trying to get to a different bracket of building or a community development. And quite frankly, I think that's overlooked far too much.
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Yeah. And I, having , um, been involved in a couple of developments myself , um, it , it is really difficult and it, it takes a lot of , um, takes a lot of money and time, and you have to be financially secure in order to do these projects. And so I think , um, just adding more cost to the, the buyer side of those projects , um, is gonna give developers pause. Would you say like, do I wanna go forward with this project, invest my time and money in this , uh, if I don't know that the , um, the buyers can build or can buy these homes with increased costs?
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Oh , absolutely. One thing to kind of think about too is it's , again, it's not just impact fees increasing, it's the building material. It's the labor involved, it's the insurance involved. We all want to, whether we're in a , um, a full custom build type of community, high-end custom homes, or we're trying to produce a product that is attainable in , in what we would consider a first time home buyer bracket. And I, I think that the, the more creative, I'm sorry, lemme digress. The more fees that are instituted towards building or developing, that's gonna require the developers and the builders to be more creative with each client and how to get there. And currently, you know, we're, we're doing that already. Mm-hmm . It's, it's a very difficult conversation just last month actually, or January, talking about micro pile type of foundations. For instance, if somebody doesn't know and they have a fixed budget for vertical construction that they're assuming, you know , I have to get pretty creative on how we get to that point of them actually being able to build it mm-hmm . And we're only, we're only exacerbating the issue by increasing further fees. Yeah.
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Yeah. Um, I'd like to hear from all of you on how you feel , um, increasing impact fees in the city of Grand Junction will affect migration of business because this is a commercial issue too, right? They're , they're going to increase , uh, impact fees on commercial structures , um, how that will affect people's migration to other areas of the county. Uh, maybe trying to avoid the impact fees that the city of Grand Junction is hoping to increase.
00:16:09.585 --> 00:18:56.845
Yes. Thanks Christie . And you're right, this does impact non-residential development as well. And I, and I do want to acknowledge that we've worked really closely with the city of Grand Junction, and the majority of categories are actually going to see a decrease in fees. But there are a couple that are still seeing substantial increases, 25%, 47%. And I think it's also really important to just call out that we say new development, but let's reclassify that because an existing business that wants to add on square footage will be assessed these fees. Mm-hmm . A business that wants to occupy a building, but change the use will have to pay the difference in these impact fees. And, and that can be really difficult, especially for small businesses that maybe find a great industrial warehouse space and wanna change it to a light retail space. They're going from the lowest use fee for transportation to the highest, and we're talking tens of thousands of dollars simply to just change how the building is going to be used. Nothing else has changed. And so it is very important that we're mindful of watching this, and we actually worked with partners to take a look at our competitiveness for surrounding communities like Montrose, like St . George Pueblo, Greeley, all these different areas. And I think what was fascinating is one, communities like Pueblo have moved away from impact fees. They're finding other ways to cover this, knowing that it can dampen economic development. Montrose is also exploring ways to minimize slash get rid of impact fees altogether. And in the other areas that we compared, we were pushing the boundaries and if not leading the way in most of these impact fees and businesses have a choice of where they want to locate mm-hmm . And where they wanna stay. So it's, it's a concern to make sure not only are we remaining attractive for new industry, but we have to keep the industry that is here. And as things continue to climb, again by a per 1000 square foot basis, it can really add up. And again, it will be the difference between opening their doors or choosing to go somewhere else. Which there are a lot of other communities that are very aggressively saying, come do business here. And we have to make sure that we're continuing to position ourselves. So one, I applaud the city's work over the last two weeks to really look at bringing those back to an , a competitive , um, range with the fees. But it's something that we still wanna be very mindful of because we do not want to say that it is not friendly to do business here. If you have a retail shop, you're, you know, we, we wanna make sure that we're, we're being very competitive in that arena.
00:18:57.424 --> 00:18:59.045
So Yeah. Same question to you, Kevin.
00:18:59.115 --> 00:19:41.605
Yeah. Just , uh, and , um, just kind a , a little bit different perspective, I think on that. Um, one is the, like our area is very attractive area to be. I mean, we, we all sitting around the table, we all know that , uh, there's a lot of things to love, but when you think about, you know, from my, from my standpoint, you think about what is really attractive about , uh, our area. You know, you have things that are really major attractors , like jobs, like jobs being available is something that attracts people to a region. Um, housing , um, you know, for a long time we were very competitive on, on being a place where you can get really affordable housing. I think we're still relatively attractive to a lot of areas where they have higher housing,
00:19:41.894 --> 00:19:44.325
Especially in the state of Colorado. Yeah .
00:19:44.325 --> 00:21:32.644
Overall, yeah . So like housing is still like that, that is one of those attract . And I think you have other things too, like healthcare , um, the higher education, like CMU, like having a university, like we have some really big attract now. We also have some great parks. Um, that's, that's nice. Those are really nice amenities to have. But to the level that, that is the attractor, I would say like a rec center, the rec center that's being built, that is going to be an , an attractor as well. Roads , um, police and fire, those are very important for your community. But those are, we have an expectation that those are, that those are well maintained , um, et cetera . So those are , those are important as well. But those aren't necessarily, I think the , what's attract attracting people. So it's kinda a long answer to the question, but we also have sort of an agreement, and this is just structurally how the , it works with the city and the county, and it's called the 2 0 1 boundary and the urban growth boundary. And so most of the development is going to occur within that urban growth boundary because of that, because there is not much density that's allowed in the county other than areas like in unincorporated Clifton and like Whitewater. There's a few places where we can have density mm-hmm . But we, we not , don't really have that option. So it's, we're somewhat captive by the 2 0 1 boundary in the city. So we will continue to have people to move here. Uh, what I, my concern is more just the people that are here are gonna continually be priced out. And you hear a lot of times people say, well, it's only, it's only $6,000, or it's only $8,000 on a $400,000, $500,000 house. I go, yeah. And that is not, that is not grossly affecting the price if you're looking at a percentage standpoint. But it absolutely will remove people from being able to make that,
00:21:32.954 --> 00:22:04.125
Well, it either has to be absorbed by the builder and developer, or passed on to the homeowner. And as we mentioned earlier, like building and developing the numbers really matter. You know , um, if you're gonna commit your time and energy and money to a project, you have a certain expectation of , um, return or you're not going in. And so it really has to be passed on to the homeowner. And it's , uh, it's, yeah. That's problematic.
00:22:05.085 --> 00:22:59.164
Yeah . And it also makes me think a little about kind of what Dave was saying. You know , Dave, you were mention , you were mentioning that you bill for , uh, people from sort of the attainable price point all the way to like the multimillion dollar home. And, you know, I would, I would, I would just kind of expect, I imagine even when you're building for somebody with that multimillion dollar home, they're still making choices. Like they have a lot of wants, but they don't necessarily get everything they want. They, they, like all your buyers probably have to make a choice. And in some ways they , the impact fee is, it's taking the choice away from the buyer, and it's saying, you're going to pay this amount for these things that , you know, it's , in a way, it's a form of like social engineering to just, to do it that way instead of the way we have done it in the past was asking voters to approve infrastructure, et cetera . But yeah, like I'm the choice.
00:22:59.765 --> 00:23:43.144
I, I couldn't agree more. And quite frankly, I would argue the point of most people who are building a multimillion dollar home, those are business owners. Those are, are people who are bringing a different level of investments to Mesa County. And they're very aware of how that money is being spent, not just on their residential home build, but also in, in giving them an idea of how to invest their money in Grand Junction. And so I would make the argument that while we have a couple different categories of attainable versus a full, you know, multimillion dollar custom home , the people who are able to afford the larger home, they're just as aware of their budget for that construction, and they're even more involved.
00:23:44.125 --> 00:23:50.005
We don't, it's very rare that you get , uh, uh, someone coming in and buying and saying, my budget is unlimited.
00:23:50.664 --> 00:23:56.565
Oh yeah. I've, I've yet to see that. I would love it. But , what's, what's, what's , uh, what are the odds of that happening,
00:23:57.384 --> 00:24:19.525
Ron, what about the question that the, the weight of , um, expansion of services to accommodate the growth of our communities should be born mostly by new construction and not the residents that already own homes. So that's the argument for not raising property taxes. Right. And nobody wants their taxes to go up, but how do you weigh those two?
00:24:20.875 --> 00:26:40.404
Well, and , and I've looked at this quite a bit, and the impact fee argument is based on what I call a fiction, a fiction. That new development does not pay its own way. But , but if you'll notice, the city did not ask for a study on that. They asked for a study that, that measures this to acquire a result of how much can they legally defend, not, it's not needs based . And if you look at new development, new development, more than pays its own way. And , um, I was just pulling up some numbers. These are from a study that the NAHB did, the National Association of Home Builders. But , uh, you know, the, the, the first first year annual revenues generated by a hundred new homes is , uh, over $28 million. And , uh, and it creates 394 jobs. And then the, the recurring, so the revenue stream that's re that's recurring every year is over $4 million. Now, this is an average, it's gonna vary from state to state or, or local to , uh, regional area to regional area. But , um, uh, you know, again, 6 69 more jobs, you , you build a a hundred houses and it generates service requirements for 69 new jobs. So , um, nobody wants to talk about the fact that, that we already are paying more than our fair share. Our new development covers the costs of services that are required by the city. What it does though, with what impact fees do is they bring revenue to the city, and they move it in their budget from non-real, which is they have to build roads now for any part of the road construction. And those type of services that we're expanding moves the equal amount of money into discretionary spending, where the city can spend it on things that they're outside of core services. This is a point that Kevin brought up some time ago, is what is the city doing that's outside of core services that they need more money for? And I think, again, a study on what the city is spending its money on outside of core services and a study on how much revenue and how much positive impact that new development brings to an area are, are those are studies that would have to be done in order to really make an informed decision on this.
00:26:41.005 --> 00:28:42.644
I think Ron brings up a really great point that we've all discussed and have questions about and continue to just need to dive a little bit deeper on, you know, making sure that, again, when we're in a time, and I keep saying we're , we are in a housing crisis, we're not getting to it, we're there now , um, that's really when you have to get down to basics and make sure priorities are the main focus, right? You , your businesses do this every day . Um, make sure that your, your core , uh, mission, your core services , um, your priorities are taken care of first. And that's really important when you're looking at , um, adding costs in any sort of way to a community, whether it's a tax increase, a fee increase, it's really important to have the basics covered in a healthy, sustainable way. And so we wanna make sure through all these conversations that, that, that is the case. Um, because, and that's why we had questions about the way, for instance, the transportation fee was, was being looked at originally, is just making sure that we, we are doing the basics first, foremost and at a high level. And if there are additional funds that can be moved to a discretionary purpose, that we know that we've done all we can to impact our workforce getting into houses. When I hear that 40% of our workforce is using 30% of their household income and 7% is using 50% of their household income, that's not something our community should be okay with. And so if we have a card in our back pocket to play, that can positively impact that. We should at this point , there's, there's no more hands to hold it on. Like, this is the time to be all in , um, as a community, as elected officials, as stakeholders saying all cards are on the table, and what can we do?
00:28:43.605 --> 00:29:08.884
I, I do want to give kudos to the city council for convening the stakeholder group. I think that was a really great part of the process. How well do you think , um, that group was set up for success, and how well do you think that group was able to deliver information to the city council that the , and did the city council listen to their recommendations? And how has that process gone in your eyes?
00:29:11.305 --> 00:29:12.105
I wasn't on it,
00:29:14.204 --> 00:31:16.204
So yeah, I wasn't on the stakeholder committee, but I did fill in for two of the four meetings for people that couldn't be on it. So I got, I, I got a piece of it. Uh , I think , uh, one thing is that the, the scope of the committee was really, it's like looking at the methodology mm-hmm . Um, but they hired a consultant for, you know, it was $170,000 to hire the consultant to do the study. And this was , it's very technical sort of granular type thing . So there wasn't much that the stakeholder committee was really like, capable of, of weighing in on, I would say , um, from sort of past experiences , uh, they did , um, I think at city , uh, manager Mike Bennett had suggested, but they did do a stakeholder meeting with the city council. I think that was very effective, very transparent, and I thought that was a, I thought that was a great part of the process. And I do think that they did look at some things and they made some revisions based on that. Um, the other thing that I would say about the, the stakeholder group, I think they kind of threw , they put every, like, everything in the kitchen, in the , in the original study. So it originally started as linkage fees, as municipal fees, and even like just using the city's own like survey that they had put out, like linkage fee ranked one out of a hundred on a priority basis , um, that they had put out to stakeholders even before the process. Mm-hmm . So I thought that was a little bit of a distraction , um, that those, that that was included, a municipal fee that's to , uh, from the HBA standpoint, we thought clearly that's something they should be asking voters for. Um, so had those not been included, there would've been sort of less, there would've been a lot less pages mm-hmm . Um, and I think people would've been , been able to sort of focus in on what we're, where , where we're at today in terms of what we're talking about. So it made a little bit difficult. It was a lot, a lot of , um, information and hard for the group to digest mm-hmm
00:31:16.285 --> 00:33:40.805
. Yeah. You know, as a member of the stakeholder group, I , I would agree, it's very dense information and data, and you always run into challenges when, you know, the consultant's job is to , to present the data that they're collecting. And oftentimes it comes down to the policy side of things to really know what, okay, what are you going to do with all these numbers and figures and things that have been collected? And, and we know that data can look different from the perspective that you're looking from. And so , um, while I think we did get off to a slower start , uh, I would agree that the meeting with city Council was something that we had not seen in recent memory and was so impactful and, and really valuable. I know we were all very grateful for that opportunity because it wasn't , um, just to sit and listen. It was a true dialogue with council . And I think that everyone at that table was able to express questions, concerns, statements of support that helped us start to really pick up the pace on the movement of, of where this was headed. Um, you could see the speed of which, you know, how responses were being handled at that point. And I think that's a great thing to hopefully see in the future as well, because , um, we have so much expertise in this community, and that's why they bring together these stakeholder groups because you have so many , um, amazing people within the community. And so leaning on that expertise is critical. Uh, and I will say feedback since then seems to , um, really be getting received and discussed. And again, we are not across the finish line yet, but I am hopeful that we continue to have that collaborative nature that we saw from that first joint meeting and, and get this across the finish line in a way that our community is able to move forward in a healthy manner , um, but in a sustainable manner. Because no one around this table or in the stakeholder group is advocating for , um, less maintenance of roads or less focus on public safety. That is absolutely not the conversation here. It's saying, are we using all of our resources
00:33:41.325 --> 00:33:43.724
Are using our resources and what is actually necessary? Yeah .
00:33:44.005 --> 00:33:44.444
Yep . Exactly.
00:33:44.924 --> 00:34:19.844
Yeah . Yeah. What are we in need of , um, the common sense institute, which was , uh, there at the , um, housing summit, which was a great event. Thank you for helping with that, Kevin. Um, uh, they spoke about all kinds of things that day, but I was reading their findings on the proposed impact fees, and they said their three biggest findings will are that it will reduce housing supply, it will raise home prices, and it will reduce home ownership rates. Do you all agree with that and you wanna comment on that?
00:34:23.005 --> 00:36:03.405
Um, so I , I think to me, it's just a practical thing. You know, if the prices of oranges goes up, fewer oranges will get purchased. And I think that's the same with housing. People are trying to afford housing, and I think, I mean, you would know this more than me working with people every day , but they're get , they're trying to get approved for a house they can't afford mm-hmm . And when you, when that price goes up, it's, it's, there's gonna take a certain number of people out of the equation. So yeah, I could see that could affect home ownership. I think the counter argument that to that though is it's always a , well, it's only 1% of the total or 2%. I think that removes the , the individual from the experience, you know, it's, it's going to remove some people from the market. And , and what I see is we do have a lot of migration and we're pretty flat on natural growth in the community. So in essence, to me, it's not okay that only people coming from outside the community who are typically coming from a higher housing market and they're using equity to purchase here, that's not a reason for us to say it's okay to raise fees. We really should be considering who lives here , um, those our kids that we want to be able to live here. And it's, it's also never, it's not just this fee, but it's also this fee and, and the , you know, the code change that we had last week and the Teds thing and the , and that it , it all adds up. And, and so the argument is always, well, this isn't going to affect, this isn't gonna affect it as much as you say,
00:36:03.954 --> 00:36:05.485
It's not the only fee that's going
00:36:05.485 --> 00:36:30.764
Up, but that is constantly a good reason to not do something that's gonna make housing cost more just because it's not a , it's not the biggest reason. Um , we should still be, I think, assertive about costs and, and we want people to experience the American dream of home ownership. Um , it comes with it a lot of benefits to the individual, and that's something that we should be protective of as a community.
00:36:31.204 --> 00:37:57.045
Absolutely. Kevin, I just think it's important too, when you mentioned migration is I talk to employers regularly who have workforce that have migrated here to use your term, have been here for a year, 18 months, have not been able to get into a home, and are now having to resign their positions and leave the community. And these are highly skilled jobs. We know that it's impacting skillable up and down the board. But to your point, even those who come into the area are finding it challenging to find housing and, and, you know, our workforce is dependent on that. It's so intertwined, and that's why we at the Chamber, while the commercial impact fees are moving in the right direction, are still gravely concerned about the impact fees on residential because , um, creating jobs is wonderful, but if we can't have housing for those filling the jobs, it , it's a moot point at that, that time. And , um, you know, it's something that we have to keep, keep an eye on. And we don't want , uh, residents that have had generations here in the valley to know that their kids cannot stay in the valley. And we hear those, I know you all hear those stories, but we hear those stories as well. And again, that is a big part of our workforce of , uh, folks grown up here, whether they went to college or not, or maybe just dove dove right into their careers. We want them to be able to plant their roots and stay here. And right now that's not possible. Yeah.
00:37:57.284 --> 00:38:48.005
And , and you know, I, I don't know the data on this, but it , I do wonder sometimes if that has something to do with our declining enrollment here, is that the young people that are, you know, graduating or, or going on to learn a , a trade or whatever, as they look at they're growing their family, they, they actually have to move somewhere else. Mm-hmm . Uh , because they're just not able to for the housing. And I look back at when I bought my first house, and I know that is not attainable like that, that ratio of what I was making as a very beginning wage to the home, that ratio no longer exists. And I think it's really sad for , um, our ability to, you know, I even think my , it's gonna be a while before my kids are at a home buying age, but I'm still worried about, you know, what that's gonna look like for them. My
00:38:48.005 --> 00:38:57.605
Kids are worried about it. They're 20 and 17 and we talk about it a lot. I'm not the one that puts the fear into them, but they read the news and they, they are worried about it.
00:38:58.275 --> 00:40:41.405
Yeah. I think the discussion , uh, seems to get centered on new homes because the fee is tied to new homes. One of the things that , um, doesn't make it into the discussion is the fact that new homes are what determines the price for existing housing stock. And as the price in new homes, it's like, 'cause a home that was built 30 years ago didn't cost what it sells for today. How did it get to where it's at? If, if it's all tied to that, it's like, because as the price of a new home goes up, it drags all of the other values up with it. And it's just the same as rents. As, as new homes go up, people buy homes as investments. Those rents are based on a cap rate tied to the value of that home. So rents go up. So this, when we drive the cost of new homes up, we, we , we drive the cost of all the existing , the most affordable housing stock we have will increase mm-hmm . At even at the lowest levels. And rents will do the same thing all the way down to the lowest rents we have. So it's, it's an affordability rate in housing across the board, not just new homes. And, and that's not something that I hear discussed much in this. And as a matter of fact, the council has just simply ignored that fact because I have brought it up to them more than once. And I, I really think it needs to be part of the discussion, because unlike oranges, housing is essential if I'm, if if oranges, if it freezes in Florida and oranges go up, I can switch to something else. You should be talking about peaches though. I mean, we're , we are in Grand Junction, right? , well , not eggs well , yeah . Yeah. Well, I quit eating eggs, so Yeah. So, so you know, you have some choices there, but housing is not one you have a choice in. You may have a choice of what type of housing, but you are going to have to live somewhere.
00:40:42.315 --> 00:40:42.764
Good point.
00:40:43.315 --> 00:41:51.005
Yeah. And I can vouch for that. Being 33 years old, my wife and I are currently experiencing that type of issue. You know, we, we could tap into the equity in our home currently and, and make a play. But if we're to move in a , a certain direction to meet the goals and the parameters that we've set together as a family, you know, that that goal set is very, very tight. The option set is very, very tight. And so then we kind of have to go back to the , the drawing board and figure out what takes priority overall. Yeah. Actually, I wanted to digress a little bit further back to the argument they made regarding builders and developers paying their own way . I also heard at that council meeting, we want the people coming from out of town, whether it's in-state, coming out from Denver, Colorado Springs, you name it, or from outta state entirely. They want them to pay their fair share. I would love to see the data that would compare how many people coming in from out of town there are, versus how many people locally that have been here for a decade or more that are still feeling the same, the same problems. Mm-hmm .
00:41:52.184 --> 00:43:37.764
So I , so I , if you guys will allow, I wanted to just tell a little story. Absolutely . Um, just recently in the last couple weeks, I had a young man that his family , family friend , um, he's , uh, graduated from high school now and, and looking at college and trade school. And he came , he wanted to come into my office and talk about an idea that he had , um, which is a roommate situation where they were looking at maybe getting on the mortgage together and buying a house. And , um, my wife knew that he was coming in and somebody else had put a bug on her ear. I hope Kevin talks him out of that. Um, because traditionally, you know, you think about like owning a house with a roommate and , uh, you know, as, as a parent, as a mentor, you think, well, this is, this is kind of a recipe for conflict and like, you know , owning a house together. Um, but it really made me think, it really made me challenge that idea because I thought otherwise, his other option is wait for five or six or seven years while he's paying rent, which is gonna continue to go up and then hopefully be able to afford his own house. And this gives, this would give him a shot at a piece of the home ownership high to, to build equity like that we all know is, is important for people. And so I didn't give the advice that my wife was hoping that I would give, because I see like, this is what, this is maybe the new reality for kids that are, they want that American dream and they have to be realistic as well. So I just thought that was, it was interesting 'cause it's not what I would hope to have, like, be recommending something like that. Mm-hmm .
00:43:37.835 --> 00:44:17.324
Well, that's a prime example of how we have to be creative in other ways where we're trying to, we're kind of held, held ho hostage to a degree by a municipal level and builders and developers, we have to be , uh, malleable to those , um, uh, parameters that are set. And we have, we have to be the ones that are creative on behalf of our client and building 'em a new home, or whether or not that's a 1600 square foot, $400,000 house, or, or a 10,000 square foot, $4 million house. And so that's a prime example of how we need to start having some conver conversations with the younger generations and figuring out how we can get creative to make something like that possible for them during
00:44:17.324 --> 00:45:23.434
The housing summit. I think, you know, the biggest takeaway that we all felt when we left there was , uh, there's no, there's no simple , uh, solution to the housing crisis that we're facing here in our community or across the country , uh, whatever community you're in. Um, but I think all of us at this table agree that increasing fees for building new construction is not going to make the situation better. It's going to hurt that. And, and it's a topic on everyone's mind and agenda, right? It is all over the country , um, trying to keep the cost of housing down, and yet we're looking at increasing the fees. So , um, as we wrap up , um, you're welcome to add any other comments, but , um, talk about how people can get involved in the conversation. Uh, what can they do to educate themselves on the topic more, to make sure they're fully informed and , um, how can they have their voices heard?
00:45:26.614 --> 00:47:09.355
You know, I'm, if you know me, I always say start with a question. I think it's important for our businesses, our community members to ask questions. It , you can come to your own conclusion, that's fine. But it's important that you, those conclusions are based on data and information and hearing a , a number of perspectives in, in the conversation. So I would say reach out to HBA, reach out to the chamber, reach out to the city and, and get information. Um, all of the proposed fees , um, are part of their council member packets. Um, and so they're printed online and easy to, to, to get your hands on. But I think reach out and ask questions , um, and then turn around and ask questions back to your elected officials to make sure that they understand. Um, maybe you don't have a, a strong feeling either way, but at least let them know that there are question marks still surrounding this topic. And for those of us that have been living and breathing this for, you know, the better part of almost a year, it's, it's important for us to continue to ask those questions until the very end, because there are still a number of unanswered loose ends that we , I don't think can move forward in an informed way that we know exactly what those outcomes are going to look like, nor can we truly , um, say the juice is worth the squeeze, quite frankly. And so , uh, I think that for all of us, we have to just continue to move forward , um, through curiosity on this topic and making sure that we, we've really explored all of the nooks and crannies because it is very complex.
00:47:11.594 --> 00:48:29.244
Um, yeah, I would say , um, and just sort of emphasizing on the , on the part of what Candace is saying , um, I , I have a , I have a class that I teach at development and, and my favorite part of that class is bringing them to city council and them realizing that it isn't, they, a lot of people, you know, they, they get a , they talk online amongst each other and they say they are doing this, they're doing this. But city council are real people and they are responsive and they, they do care about the community. And that's what I would say to people is if you would email a city council person, you should expect, I would expect they all will all reply to emails mm-hmm . And you, you don't need to know the exact , um, application of the study or the methodology to let a city council person know that you think h like housing affordability is important. And they do, it does make a difference. And they do listen and they, and they do respond. And that's what I think is, is a , um, hugely underutilized , um, aspect of this city council is that they , they are real human beings and they do respond and they are available.
00:48:29.335 --> 00:48:31.525
Thank you for pointing that out. Yeah , yeah,
00:48:33.434 --> 00:49:02.125
Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that statement. And I'll speak for myself here. If anybody's listening and they have questions, comments, concerns, feel free to reach out to me. Feel free to reach out to your , uh, local HBA, start talking to your real estate agents. Talk , start talking to your builders, talk to the developers. 'cause we all live this day in and day out. The more educated that we can become as a community, the better off we are in , in finding real solutions to the broken arm rather than putting a bandaid on it.
00:49:03.755 --> 00:49:49.885
Yeah. I think , uh, the city has , uh, dj speaks.com as well, right? Mm-hmm . Uh , that you can , um, go on and uh , make comments. And , uh, I think the question , uh, you brought up asking a question and the question is how does this help the housing affordability issue? And , and , um, I would be interested to hear an answer from someone how that that helps, because I don't think it does. And I think that's just a great question. Um, if that is a priority, which they all say it's a priority mm-hmm . But the actions don't match up with what they're saying. And , um, I think other things get prioritized over it. 'cause they do have a certain amount of discretionary spending they have. And would this not be a great place to use that discretion instead of increasing the fees for housing?
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Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, well, the April 2nd , uh, city council meeting ought to be very well attended. Um, and we encourage everybody to get involved and make your voices heard. So thank you to all of you today for participating in this discussion. And , um, wanna encourage , uh, everybody again to , um, speak out, educate yourselves on this issue, and make sure you understand how it can affect housing affordability in our community.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, Christy . Yep .
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Alright everybody, we'll see you next time on the Full Circle podcast again. Um , reach out to any of our panelists here today. Uh, Candace Carnahan, Dave Hancock, Ron Avalo , and Kevin Bray. Uh, they all be willing to, and , and myself as well. We're all willing to speak on this topic and how it affects our community. So reach out and , uh, we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is Christy Reese signing out from the Full Circle Podcast .
