By Allyson Solomon, Executive Director, Metropolitan Pima Alliance | Real Estate Daily News
In 2011, the Arizona legislature passed comprehensive changes to the state’s development impact fee enabling act, putting in place regulations on how the incorporated municipalities would assess, collect, spend and report their fee program. The legislation put in place more transparent and predictable processes to try to ensure new development only pays a proportionate share for the costs of the new infrastructure. The legislation set up processes by which the fee studies are created and approved before the impact fees are determined, separating out the process into two approvals.
The first approval is for Land Use Assumptions (LUA) and Infrastructure Improvement Plans (IIP). These two legally required documents establish baseline data for development growth and define the projects to be completed with the collected impact fees. The second approval is for the fee amounts, determined by the LUA and IIPs. Both are approved by the local governing body after a public hearing process.
