Fayetteville, Arkansas

Water, Wastewater, Road and Park Impact Fee Study
   

For the City of Fayetteville, Duncan Associates developed a two-phase work program to assess the appropriateness of impact fees as an alternative financing mechanism. The study was prompted by the need to find alternative sources of revenue to fund capital improvements necessitated by the community's rapid growth. The city's population has been growing at a rate of more than 3.2 percent annually, over twice as fast as the state as a whole. The first phase included a legal analysis, comparative fee survey and policy directions analysis. At the conclusion of the first phase, the City Council decided to pursue the

development of impact fees for water, wastewater and roads. The City also chose to have Duncan Associates update the existing park land dedication and fee in-lieu provisions, which had been litigated and upheld by the state supreme court. The initial draft of the impact fee study, completed in April 2002, includes a "sliding scale" for single-family residences, depending on unit size. Ultimately, the City decided to proceed without the new road fee, and adopted water and wastewater fees and revised parkland dedication requirements in 2003. In 2004, the firm was retained to prepare an impact fee study for roads, fire and police facilities. A revised version of the road impact fee study was prepared in 2006. The firm is currently working on an update of the water and wastewater impact fees, which will account for differential costs to serve client communities of Greenland, Farmington and Elkins.