Real Estate 
Kingman Mayor John Salem told a group of builders that he still wants to see impact fees in the city reduced, despite a lowering of part of the fees being voted down by the Council last week.
Salem told the Northern Arizona Building Association Kingman Chapter members he plans to continue his effort to lower the fees and provide a more friendly relationship between the city and builders at their monthly meeting at the Dambar restaurant on Tuesday.
“I’ve been working on it for five months to reduce the impact fees,” Salem said. “Impact fees are not going to fund Rattlesnake Wash. It would take us 30 years to pay for Rattlesnake Wash (with impact fees).
“Rattlesnake Wash is on the ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) five-year plan.”
Despite the recent split on a 4-2 vote not to pursue a 50 percent reduction on the Transportation portion of impact fees, Salem said he believes the recently-elected Council is making progress.
“Regardless of the impact fee problem we’re a good team,” Salem said. “We get along and we’re trying to do some good things.”
He pointed out that most cities are experiencing financial problems in the current economy, but that Kingman is holding its own.
“Bullhead City has eliminated its Developmental Services. I don’t even know where you ‘d go to get a building permit now,” Salem said. “Havasu has a similar problem. We’re just not seeing that.”
He said Kingman has cut staff, but not by layoffs like Bullhead City.
“City jobs are down by about 40 by attrition,” Salem said. “There is so much fluff in the city we can lose way more than 40 and not lose anything.”
He also elaborated on yet another impact fee Kingman developers will be hit with early next year. Because additional wastewater treatment facilities are needed for Kingman a new plant is in the works and there will be impact fees charged to developers for it and residential bills will also rise and the cost of pumping water has seen a dramatic increase as fuel costs rose.
“We spent about $2 million on electricity pumping water last year. The water increase will be about 10 percent. The average house will see about a $3 increase,” Salem said. “Right now it is about $720 for a water main and $1,200 for impact fees. It will be about $1,800 (for impact fees).”
A new wastewater facility will be funded by the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona (WIFA).
For wastewater he said the additional cost to homeowners will be about $7 to $8.
“The impact fee will see about 30 percent increase,” Salem said. “We have to prove to WIFA we can pay for this.
“We’ve spent $4.2 million on the design and it is going to cost about $40 to build,” Salem said.
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