Impact Fees

Memo to political strategists in New Jersey: To win the senior citizen vote, dash school taxes. The Republican incumbents and Democratic challengers of the New Jersey Legislature's Eighth District took that advice to heart last night at an issues forum at Lenape High School. A half-filled auditorium, composed almost exclusively of senior citizens, many from Mount Laurel, listened as the candidates were questioned by members of the Citizens Education Coalition. During the early part of the evening, Democrats hit hard at the property tax. "Property taxes to fund schools are wrong," said Jim Smith, a Democratic candidate for the General Assembly in the Eighth District.

Calling development in the area inevitable, the Board of Supervisors voted, 4-1, this week to approve funding for a traffic study in the southeast corner of the township. The dissenting vote was cast by Supervisor Anne Goren, who warned that the study would lead to the eventual construction of Concept Way, a 3,600-foot road. "We are promoting the development of that area in a manner in which the people of this township don't want to see," Goren said at Wednesday night's meeting.

The township is poised to become the first municipality in the state to compel residential builders to pay for the extra students they introduce into public schools. Under an ordinance being considered by the Township Committee, builders would be charged $3,000 for every new house built in the township. The levy - called an impact fee - would offset the burden new development puts on the schools, said Mayor Gary Finger. "The schools are at capacity, absolute capacity," he said.

Usually, discussions of crowding and parking refer to them: tourists who jaunt up to Bucks County to shop along the funky strip on Main Street. More recently, talk is focusing on new borough residents who will clog the streets and drain services. Development has come to New Hope. Having long remained an island among nearby suburban developments, the mile-and-a-half-square borough soon will know what it is like to have its dwindling acres of barren land subdivided into townhouses and single-family homes.

Plans for the new Spring-Ford Area High School are scheduled to go before the township supervisors tonight. But a dispute over impact fees stemming from the project remains to be resolved. Spring-Ford school board members were surprised to learn last week that the township apparently wants to charge the district more than $400,000 for road improvements under a new ordinance in the Limerick municipal code. The school board contends, however, that because it is already paying about $400,000 for improvements along Lewis Road, including a left-turn lane at the new high school's entrance, the impact fee should be waived or credited.

Supervisors probably will give Lockheed Martin the green light for its proposed development along Route 332 on one condition: It agrees on a traffic-impact fee with the township. The township Planning Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to recommend approval for both Lockheed Martin and Holy Family College to build on 52 acres on the bypass near Interstate 95. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to hear the proposals at its Wednesday meeting. "Really, the only remaining issue here is this discrepancy in the traffic-impact fee," said Supervisor Steve Sanderlin.

Almost everything is green in Leonard Crooke's world. The tall grass ringing his rich fields; the lush, stately trees beside his barn and silos, and the rolling hills that surround his 118-acre dairy farm, all exude the vibrant color of natural growth. But for the last six years, Crooke has been able to see other colors from his stone farmhouse - the brown roofs, blue swimming pools, red clay tennis courts and black satellite dishes of the new, upscale housing development next door.

An independent auditor said last week that he had identified nearly $600,000 in unspent impact-fee money in township coffers, clearing up questions about whether the money had been used illegally. "Nobody lost any money, or siphoned any money off," said William P. St. Clair, a Center City accountant who prepared a report on the impact fees, which are collected from builders and developers. "We traced every dollar into the bank and, if it was spent, we made sure it had been approved," St. Clair said.

It's called an education impact fee. It would be a special, one-time tax on new homes to help offset the cost of adding students to a district. Rough figures show that adding a student to an area school system costs the district between $7,000 and $8,000. At Abington Township's public works committee meeting Monday night, several local politicians pledged support for two bills - one in the state House, sponsored by Rep. David J. Steil (R., Bucks), and one in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf (R., Montgomery-Bucks)

This township prides itself on being a well-planned and maintained, upwardly mobile suburban community that has not lost its rural charm. But even its scenic landscape can't mask the bitterness that has divided the township's Board of Supervisors, according to several candidates vying for two open seats in Tuesday's primary. The board has been stymied in its efforts to appoint a new township manager. Four supervisors are divided over whether to appoint the fifth supervisor, Wesley Hackman, as the new manager.