Reference Library

Impact Fees

• RSA 674:21, V
• List of municipalities with an impact fee ordinance (from Municipal Land Use Regulation Database)
• List of municipalities with both a growth management ordinance and an impact fee ordinance (from Municipal Land Use Regulation database)
• Chapter 106 (SB 291) 2012
  This bill provides that if a municipality has collected impact fees for improvements to municipal roads, it may spend those fees on state highways within the municipality "for improvement costs that are related to the capital needs created by the development." However, the municipality is not allowed to collect additional fees for improvements to state highways, or to adopt "new impact fees devoted to assessing impacts to state highways." The new law also requires every municipality with an impact fee ordinance to prepare an annual report listing all expenditures of impact fee revenue for the prior fiscal year, identifying the capital improvement projects for which the fees were assessed, and stating the dates upon which the fees were assessed and collected. The report must enable the public to track the payment, expenditure, and status of individually collected fees.
  • Summary of the bill from Innovative Land Use Controls: Reexamining Your Zoning Ordinance, NHMA Law Lecture #3, Fall 2012 by Attorney Keriann Roman, Drummond, Woodsum & MacMahon and Christopher G. Parker, AICP, Director of Planning & Community Development, City of Dover.
• MICHAEL CLARE, TRUSTEE OF HORIZON REALTY TRUST v. TOWN OF HUDSON Argued: January 20, 2010 Opinion Issued: June 16, 2010
  • Lesson: Properly account for the actual work done for which the impact fees were collected and keep detailed invoices showing how and where the impact fees were spent.
  • Substandard Accounting Leads to the Partial Return of Impact Fees (or Off-Site Exactions) (LGC summary)
  • Summary of the case from Innovative Land Use Controls: Reexamining Your Zoning Ordinance, NHMA Law Lecture #3, Fall 2012 by Attorney Keriann Roman, Drummond, Woodsum & MacMahon and Christopher G. Parker, AICP, Director of Planning & Community Development, City of Dover.
• Impact Fee Comparison, City of Dover, 6/16/10
• "Deep impact - Towns say development fees help offset taxes", Eagle-Tribune, March 2, 2008
• "Court Upholds Planning Board’s Ability to Set and Adjust Impact Fees", New Hampshire Town & City, January 2006
• EDWIN AND STEPHANIE SIMONSEN v. TOWN OF DERRY, November 15, 2000
  • Excerpt (PDF ) from LGC Law Lecture #1, Fall 2005: "Off-site Exactions and Impact Fees: Balancing Municipal Interests and Private Property Rights" outlining the history leading up to Simonsen and the resulting 2004 legislation amending RSA 674:21.
• Chapter 199, 2004, (SB 414)
  This bill amended RSA 674:39 (exemption from subsequent zoning and planning regulations) in several ways. First, it excepts impact fees from the permanent exemption that attaches upon substantial completion of improvements on a subdivision plat or site plan. Second, it authorizes planning boards to define "substantial completion of the improvements," and allows the planning board to include such definition, as well as a definition of the term "active and substantial development or building," either in its subdivision and site plan regulations or as a condition of subdivision or site plan approval. Third, it provides that if the board fails to specify what constitutes "active and substantial development or building" in its regulations or as a condition to approval, the subdivision or site plan will automatically be entitled to the statute’s four-year exemption. Finally, it reorganizes RSA 674:39 and makes some technical changes.
• Responses to the 3/23/01 plan-link impact fee ordinance poll
• Impact Fee Development - A Handbook for New Hampshire Communities, SNHPC (revised edition) July 1999
• PAS MEMO. Gregory, Michelle, "Impact Fees for Schools", Public Investment, December 1993
• Local examples:
  • Jaffrey, Public Capital Facilities Impact Fee Ordinance, 1991
  • Londonderry, 2005
  • Goffstown’s ordinance (Section 16) and fee methodology report for recreation facilities
  • Rochester
• Plan-link discussion threads
  • "Recreational Impact Fees"
  • "Impact Fee for a town-wide road plan?"

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