October 9, 2002
A special meeting was held on Monday, October 7, 2002, for the Steering Committee for Richmond Village Board, Spring Grove Village Board, Nippersink School District #2 Board and the Richmond Burton Community High School District #157 Board. The discussion centered on the development of a model impact fee ordinance and an annexation agreement which is acceptable and uniform for both municipalities within the school districts.

Committee members include school Superintendents George Zimmer and Wayne Riesen, Village Presidents Kevin Brusek and Robert Martens, and board members Dave Delgatto, Dave Oelert, Dennis Zarnsdorf, Jim Haskens, Cindy Holtz, Mark Eisenberg, Dan Vetter, Del Houghton, Jim Haskens, Charolette Hollenbach.

At this time the committee is investigating the legalities of impact fees and how they can be used by the school districts.

The committee solicited the assistance of attorney Richard Flood of the Crystal Lake-based firm Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle to answer burning questions. Flood has experience in this area as he wrote impact fee ordinances for McHenry County and Lakewood. He wrote a response to the committee which covered these areas:

  1. Schools can use impact fees to build buildings and any other capital improvements only if the ordinance is employed. Otherwise impact fess used for buildings is invalid.
  2. Proper wording in the ordinance is essential to protect the village from lawsuits.
  3. The ordinance must state the permissible use of impact fees.
  4. Each annexation agreement can be different, but one can set a
precedence for future developments.
  5. The annexation agreements do have flexibility. The parties can agree to things not against public policy.
  6. Impact fees have variables. For example, the amount of land needed per student in Richmond can be different than needed in Spring Grove.
  7. Impact fees can be levied a number of ways: square footage of home, number of bedrooms, flat rate. Recommended is the number of bedrooms.
  8. Impact fees may be imposed as a condition of platting.
  9. Recommend that they be reviewed annually.
  10. School districts must advise the municipalities of future needs.
  11. Communication between the school districts and village boards is critical to success.

Zimmer asked the committee to consider new information which could raise the impact fee from a single-family home to $8,600 up from the current $4,700. According to Zimmer, the local school districts have unique character as opposed to districts to the districts in the southern part of McHenry County. "This is just a presentation of information," said Zimmer, "not a proposal. We must justify the Naperville ordinance for our own area."

Eisenberg, however, balked at the idea. "We must look at the big picture," he said. "What we do depends on school policy as to the size of the schools."

The size and number of schools was discussed. According to Riesen, the high school was built for 800 students, expandable to accommodate 1200 students. New developments will quickly overcome capacity. "We actually can put a small addition on the high school at no expense to the taxpayer just through the impact fees," he said. "But building another school has advantages. You
could have twice as many students participating in athletic programs, for example."

Brusek summarized the main points of the discussion which need further investigation by the committee.

1.      How many children do we want in each school?

2.      What is a fair value for an acre of land which might be donated to a
school district by a developer?

3.      How many acres are needed for each school?

4.      Can the village impose impact fees on contiguous properties within 1 ½ miles from the village border?

Brusek strongly recommended that any new annexation agreements would be the same without differences for each developer.

The next Steering Committee meeting will be on November 4, 2002, at 6:00pm in the library of the Nippersink Middle School in Richmond.