Developer Dave White wants to build Mountain Terrace — a $10 million development featuring 130 townhouses, a gymnasium and a day care — on his property along Northeast 162nd Avenue.
But banks are “cherry-picking” only the best projects for lending, and with $1 million in city permitting and other fees before he hammers a nail, White said he and other developers could use a city fee holiday.
“We’d just like any help we can get to make this pencil so banks find it attractive,” said White, who lobbied to have the property annexed into the city in 2006. “This is the difference of building and not building.”
However, it’s not clear how inclined the Vancouver City Council — which would make the final call on any temporary or permanent fee holidays — is to giving public subsidies to builders.
In a Monday workshop, city staff outlined how a fee holiday process could work in Vancouver, but said they believed it is too complicated and too costly to pan out. The Community Development Department relies almost entirely on permit and other fees. When a government puts in a fee holiday, staff explained, the money has to be covered by the city’s already strained budget.
And while staff recommended that the council pass on instituting a fee holiday, a majority of councilors said they favor looking into a limited, small-scale fee holiday for areas like downtown or the Fourth Plain Corridor.
The city council looked at examples of fee holidays started in Gresham, Ore., Bellingham and by Clark County.
Clark County commissioners approved their 14-month fee holiday in October 2010, waiving application and service fees for certain mixed-use, commercial, industrial, business park and office campus projects in select parts of the county.
So far about $100,000 in permit review fees have been waived and covered by the county general fund. The average savings to each developer has been about $2,000.
“There’s some anecdotal evidence to suggest that in some cases it’s been successful, but in each of these there hasn’t been examples of wild success,” City Manager Eric Holmes said.
Vancouver planning has been working on numerous permanent changes to its review and permitting system that have been saving developers time and money, Community Development Director Laura Hudson said. Steps have included shortening the wait to get an engineering and site plan review to 90 days, and the department is also working on a 60-day site plan review deadline for smaller projects.
The city council also approved moving many medium-sized projects from Type 2 developments — which require lengthy review and public notice and comment periods — to Type 1, which go much faster and are cheaper. Several other plans include a small business website and a software upgrade.
“(A fee holiday) won’t really boost the economy overall in the community, or make your community development friendly the way more permanent changes to systems and to codes would do,” Hudson said. “Staff’s recommendation is basically that we should continue to focus on permanent system changes.”
But the city council said they’d like to hear more about fee holidays.
“I, too, want to be cautious, but I also want to help small business,” Councilor Jeanne Harris said.
Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt said that for restaurants and other small businesses key to revitalizing areas such as downtown and Fourth Plain, every cent can make a difference.
He said the council would like the staff to “come back with other thoughts on the framework for a fee holiday for small businesses.”
No mention was made about the east side of town, meaning Mountain Terrace on Northeast 162nd Avenue and its developer, White, may not get the break he is looking for.
“The main thing that I guess screams (in favor of) this project is jobs,” White said. “We need to break out the electric-shock paddles to try and revive this corridor.”
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542, andrea.damewood//twitter.com/col_cityhall.
