One Last Word on Impact Fees

For those of you who attended the Navigating The Chicago Real Estate Market Symposium on April 22nd, you will recall that there was much discussion regarding municipal impact fees and their affect on local development. The one piece to the puzzle that was missing from the seminar was the willingness of school districts to re-evaluate their fees and land cash values as well. Ironically, the same day as the seminar, the weekly Oswego newspaper, Ledger-Sentinel, ran two articles addressing this very topic. The headlines of the articles, "Schools advised to stand-by land-cash values" and "School board wants to maintain developer fees" tells most of the story. However, the attorney for the Oswego School District did instruct the board not to lower fees, but advised the school board to "let developers ask you to lower their land values." The implication was that if the developer asks for lower land-cash values, and can justify the lower values, then you should perhaps lower your values. The underlying message here is that if school districts are willing to negotiate their fees and land-cash values, almost all other municipal fees are open to negotiation (at least open for discussion).

Unfortunately, the Ledger-Sentinel does not post all of its news stories on its website (did I mention that this is a weekly newspaper?), however, we have scanned the articles and you can find the "Schools advised to stand-by land-cash values" article here and the "School board wants to maintain developer fees" article here.

Another Great Event

Thank you to everyone who attended the Navigating the Chicago Real Estate Market in 2010 event on Thursday, April 22nd. The turnout was great, as usual. The Grotto always does a fantastic job hosting us and the three panels were the best we have had.

This event was a little more upbeat than our previous sessions, and for good reason. Existing home sales continued their steady improvement and we think that the existing home median sales price has finally reached the bottom. Anecdotally, we had many conversations with attendees who told us that sales seem to be better than they were last Spring. Of course, everyone is holding their breath as the $8,000 and $6,500 tax credits expire at the end of next week.

Our next event will be held in the Fall with the exact time and place yet to be determined, so keep your eyes out for our announcements.

Thanks again for making this another successful event!

Tale of Two Villages

In case you missed it, Mary Ellen Podmolik from the Chicago Tribune wrote an interesting article about the different strategies that the neighboring villages of Plainfield and Shorewood are using to lure builders and developers back into their respective communities. Plainfield has essentially reduced impact fees by $9,000 in an attempt to make it more palpable for a developer to acquire and develop land within the village limits. Shorewood has decided to not to extend a temporary reduction in impact fees, essentially because no one was taking advantage of the reduction.

Another neighboring community to Plainfield, the Village of Oswego, recently voted to increase their sewer and water tap-on fees by $1,000 per lot. This increase was approved only after the board rejected a proposal to double their sewer and water tap-on fees.

It is interesting to follow the divergent paths that the municipalities are taking to either entice development back into their communities or discourage it.

To hear more about what municipalities are doing to entice development back into their communities, please attend the Navigating the Chicago Real Estate Market Seminar on April 22, 2010 at The Grotto in Oakbrook. For registration information, please click here.

To read the Tribune article, please click here.