Thanks to Clark County’s blanket fee waiver program, Jackson Food Stores, a gas station and convenience store in Hazel Dell, benefited from about $465,000 in subsidized application and traffic impact fees.
Eventually, the convenience store, part of an Idaho chain of more than 200 stores, will generate enough property and sales tax revenue to cover the loss of those fees.
That is, if the business survives the 114 years it would take to do so.
That’s according to an analysis of Clark County’s fee waiver program by the Community Development Department, presented at a workshop Wednesday to the Clark County council.
If the reactions from councilors were any indication, the work session foreshadowed potential changes or even a repeal of the program championed by Republican Councilor David Madore in 2013.
Community Development Director Marty Snell and his department have spent the past several months analyzing the fee waiver program, determining how long it would take the county to recoup the costs for the top 10 projects in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Snell also presented data tracking unincorporated Clark County’s economic growth with incorporated areas.
Among the chief findings:
• The county will be quick to recoup the cost of projects that improved existing buildings because little or no traffic impact fees were waived, such as Natural Grocers, at 7604 N.E. Fifth Ave., across the street from the Hazel Dell Jacksons. New projects, such as drive-thru coffee kiosks and nonprofit projects, will take many years to pay back.
• The job growth rate in the unincorporated areas of Clark County closely tracks with the job growth rate in the incorporated area. However, more new jobs were created in cities than in unincorporated areas in 2014 and 2015.
• The fee waiver program’s impact on funds used for road improvement projects could force the county to delay traffic projects, Public Works Director Heath Henderson said. “We’re looking at potentially delaying some projects as we move forward,” Henderson told the council.
But falling into predictable lines, Madore and fellow Republican Councilor Tom Mielke made it clear they were uninterested in revisiting the program.
Republican Councilors Julie Olson and Jeanne Stewart, and Council Chair Marc Boldt, no party preference, all called for more information and potential changes to the policy.
Boldt said the program gives an unfair advantage to nonresidential developers. Boldt called that preferential treatment “illegal.”
“I’m amazed that the building community, how patient they have been,” Boldt said. “I’d be going berserk, to tell you the truth.”
Mielke, meanwhile, said he was “reluctant” to cancel the program, saying doing so could jeopardize revenue gains in Clark County.
“We still haven’t tied it together,” Mielke said.
Madore echoed familiar talking points, saying Clark County’s job growth has been the highest in the region.
“The economic activity, each one of those (businesses) is a piston and an engine that drives all of this economy,” Madore said.
It is true that Clark County’s employment gains outpace metro-area averages, according to regional economist Scott Bailey with the state Employment Security Department. But it’s unclear what impact, if any, the fee waiver had in attracting new business and jobs to Clark County. A 2014 performance audit of the program by the Clark County Auditor’s Office described a potentially unsustainable program that at best only accelerated construction projects that would have occurred anyway.
Stewart pointed out that the economy’s turnaround may have more to do with Clark County’s economic success than the fee waiver program.
“I can’t assert that the fee waiver had nothing to do with that,” Stewart said. “But the general economy turned around through our whole region, including Portland, Vancouver, the whole area.”
Olson, meanwhile called for an improved, targeted program taking the wishes of developers into account.
“Why don’t we get stakeholders to the table? Come up with a program that works for those we want it to work for,” Olson said.
Boldt said the council is likely to hold a second work session, and then discuss the program’s future in a public hearing.
