A proposal to tack more than $21,000 onto the price of building a four-bedroom home in Anne Arundel County has incensed homebuilders and developers, who predict a sweeping bundle of increases to impact fees could deflate the growth boom around Fort Meade and drive them into other jurisdictions.
County Executive John R. Leopold has said the current impact fee of $4,904 a house - typically passed on to buyers - is long overdue for an increase because it doesn't cover the "full freight" of building roads and schools and providing county services. He has said that if higher fees, such as $1 million more for a 200,000-square-foot office complex, slow down "meteoric" growth, "that is not an undesired outcome."
His proposal, which would make Anne Arundel's impact fees perhaps the highest in Maryland, has won cheers from environmentalists and civic leaders, and has helped him fend off criticism that he's too cozy with developers, who gave his campaign more than a quarter-million dollars last year.
Leopold said impact fees have been set artificially low since their inception in 1987, and he faulted developers' excessive influence over the process. As a result, he said, the fees force taxpayers to subsidize developers' infrastructure costs.
"I want to see that changed," the Republican said.
But with the building industry in a downturn and construction costs soaring, developers and business leaders fear the higher fees could cripple the local real estate market. New fees would push coveted commercial projects - which Anne Arundel sorely lacks - to other suburban counties at a time when the county is bracing for 22,000 new jobs at the Army post, they said.
"There will be demand in Anne Arundel County, for sure," said Cathy Ward, a senior vice president for Corporate Office Properties Trust, one of the region's largest developers. "But that demand can be pushed across county lines."
Bob Burdon, chief executive of the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, said the proposed impact fees would be "counterproductive" to Leopold's stated goal of boosting commercial growth.
The county's commercial base stands at about 17 percent - some 5 percent to 8 percent lower than surrounding counties, Burdon said. Commercial projects typically pay out more in taxes than what they receive in municipal services, a big asset to Anne Arundel, which operates under a tax cap.
