Harker Heights council adopts impact fees, canvasses votes on marijuana ordinance

Killeen Daily Herald
By Clay Thorp Herald correspondent
November, 15, 2022

HARKER HEIGHTS — For the first time in the city’s history, the Harker Heights City Council on Tuesday passed an ordinance to adopt impact fees area developers will pay to build new homes over the next decade.

The city also canvassed the Nov. 8 election that saw voters pass an historic, albeit controversial, marijuana ordinance.

Heights wants to use the additional impact fee revenue to build water and wastewater infrastructure needed to feed thirsty new developments that are sure to come along the city’s eastern growth corridors.

President of the Central Texas Homebuilders Association Joshua Welch spoke against the measure Tuesday night. Welch is also a developer who pointed to plans to building more than 1,000 new homes in the Heights area.

“We’re planning for potentially another 1,500 units (homes) of growth over the next 10 years,” Welch said Tuesday.

Heights Assistant City Manager Jerry Bark on Tuesday told the Herald the city’s consultant based the city’s new $6,133 impact fee on 1,379 new homes. The city says it will need about $53.7 million to fund capital improvements to support the city’s coming needs. Some $15.7 million of that would come from the city’s new impact fees, according to the city’s planning department.

“We can only recoup 50% of the cost on impact fees,” Bark said of the coming developments.

There was plenty of public discourse about the ordinance between council members Tuesday night, culminating in a 3-2 vote with Mayor Pro Tem Jennifer McCann and Councilwoman Lynda Nash voting no. Councilmen Tony Canterino, Michael Blomquist and Sam Halabi voted yes.

Before the vote, Nash and McCann seemed to lean toward lowering the $6,133 impact fee down closer to the $4,000 mark after Welch’s presentation to the board.

Nash asked city staff their options on lowering the fee now or later down the road. Nash later asked council to consider the $5,000 mark. But Canterino and Blomquist solidly refused to amend their motions to pass the new ordinance.

Canterino and Blomquist viewed any lowering of impact fees as taxpayers getting a raw deal from developers, calling it a burden especially to lower income Heights residents.

“We aren’t trying to run you out of business,” Blomquist said of developers. “We are trying to make sure this is fair for everybody.”

Canterino said he was “trying to defer some of that cost back to builders” and didn’t want taxpayers subsidizing the housing development industry.

“I’m not going to lower rates to subsidize private industry,” he said.

After the impact fee ordinance passed, Welch told the Herald homes will be affected.

“It will have an effect — yes,” he said. “To what extent, we’ll see.”

At the end of their meeting, council members canvassed the election that passed a new marijuana decriminalization marijuana ordinance, but the future of the ordinance is on anything but solid ground.

The council could vote to repeal the ordinance at its next meeting Nov. 22 on the grounds it violates the Texas Constitution.

“The voters have spoken on this proposition, but this is already a state law. It would have to be changed at the state level.” Bark said Tuesday.

The assistant city manager said the council might not repeal the ordinance entirely.

“They could amend it, or they could repeal it,” Bark said.