An impact fee is a fee that is imposed by municipalities on a new or proposed development project to pay for all or a portion of the costs of providing public services to the new development. In 2004, the Gorham Town Council approved impact fees to ensure that new developments would be accomplished in an efficient manner and bear a proportional or reasonably related share of the cost of new, expanded, or modified infrastructure necessary to service them.
The three impact fees currently established in Gorham are the Middle School Facilities impact fee, the Recreational Facilities and Open Space impact fee, and the Fort Hill Water Main Extension impact fee. The Middle School Facilities impact fee is currently in a reserved status. It was suspended during the housing crisis of 2008 to help encourage new housing growth, which had slowed substantially at that time, but the Town Council is considering reactivating it for the duration of the bonding period for the middle school.
All impact fees collected in Gorham are segregated into separate accounts and used to pay for the capital cost of infrastructure improvements associated with each fee. For example, the Recreational Facilities and Open Space impact fees are spent on an approved list of properties that include the Chick property, Phase 2 of the recreational facilities at Gorham Middle School, the Weeks Road property, and the Little Falls Recreation area. In November, the Town Council appropriated $245,000 from impact fees to build a Recreation Field House and Storage Facility at the Little Falls Recreation Area.
The open space portion of the impact fee is used to acquire and preserve land for low impact activities such as walking, bird-watching, cross-country skiing and other activities that allow the land to be minimally developed and remain open space or farmland. The Town Council works with local Land Trusts and preservation groups to identify and purchase these open space areas.
The Recreational Facilities and Open Space impact fee, which applies to any residential construction project that creates a new dwelling unit or units, is based upon the expected occupancy of the project. This includes single and multi-family dwellings as well as sub-divisions. Combined, this fee is $536 per capita with 85%, or $457, going to recreational facilities and 15%, or $79, going to open space facilities.
The Fort Hill Water Main Extension impact fee is assessed to any development within the Fort Hill Water Main Extension Benefit District (map dated April 26, 2004 is on file with the Town Clerk). The fee varies depending on the size and use of the new development as well as whether the development falls within Area A or Area B of the District.
The base fee was set at $650 for Area A and $200 for Area B for fiscal years 2003-04 and 2004-05. It was indexed for inflation at a rate of 3% per year. This rate adjustment resulted in the fees being $983 for Area A and $303 for Area B in fiscal year 2018-2019.
The Fort Hill Water Main Extension impact fee will terminate when the Town has collected $249,000 in that account. As of October 2018, approxi- mately $196,000 in fees had been col- lected and paid to offset the town’s share of this project. It is estimated that the Fort Hill Water Main Extension Impact fee will be collected for a few more years at an increase of 3% per year.