(A) The Board of Mayor and Aldermen (“Board”) hereby finds and declares that:
(1) The city is committed to the provision of public facilities and services at levels attainable within its resources to cure any existing public service deficiencies in already developed areas;
(2) Such facilities and services levels will be provided by the city utilizing available funds allocated via the capital budget and capital improvements programming processes and relying upon the funding sources indicated therein;
(3) However, new residential and non-residential development imposes increased and excessive demands on city public facilities and services including, without limitation, sanitary sewers, storm sewers, water lines, water tanks, a fire hall, fire trucks and police cars, safety and rescue equipment, public works machinery, roads and parks that would not otherwise be necessary;
(4) Planning and zoning projections indicate that such development will continue and will place ever increasing demands on the city to provide necessary public facilities;
(5) To the extent that such developments place demands on the public facility infrastructure, those demands should be satisfied by shifting the responsibility for financing the provision of such facilities from the public at large to the developments actually creating the demands; and
(6) The amount of the impact fee to be imposed shall be determined by the cost of the additional public facilities needed to support such development.
(B) The Board of Mayor and Aldermen, after careful consideration of the matter, hereby finds and declares that an impact fee imposed upon residential and non-residential development in order to finance specified major public facilities, the demand for which is created by such development is in the best interest of the general welfare of the city and its residents, is equitable, does not impose an unfair burden on such development by forcing developers and builders to pay more than their fair or proportionate share of the cost, and deems it advisable to adopt this chapter, as hereinafter set forth.
(2011 Code, § 5-502) (Ord. 15-04, passed 12-21-2015; Ord. 19-11A, passed 4-15-2019)