Hojun Choi
BERLIN — Berlin officials are studying how they could implement a new fee to help offset the impacts to the town’s public safety and infrastructure — much of which is expected to stem from the town’s commercial growth.
“You can’t put all of that on the backs of taxpayers when you’re bringing in new developments,” Berlin Town Administrator Vince Conti said.
Under Vermont state law, municipalities have the ability to charge an “impact fee” to developers to cover the costs for local capital infrastructure projects, such those for water, sewer, and road maintenance.
In theory, impact fees would lessen the financial burden on the town, freeing up resources for other costs, such as those related to the police and fire departments.
“We need to start considering impact fees for those developments to offset the infrastructure costs,” Conti said.
Municipalities can use impact fees to fund one-time projects, such as a new fire station or a road, that would otherwise be funded through tax dollars.
Mark Hall, an attorney with more than 30 years’ experience litigating land use issues in Vermont, described impact fees as one-time charges “designed to roughly cover a proportional share of capital costs for public infrastructure.”
“Mostly, what you see is impact fees used for capital projects related to water, sewer, and roads — things of that nature,” said Hall, a senior litigator at Burlington-based law firm Paul Frank + Collins.
Berlin is a major retail hub in central Vermont. Although its population hovers around 2,800, the number of people in the town during the day swells to about 22,000, Conti said.
Large employers in town include Walmart and the Central Vermont Medical Center. Additionally, Chipotle and Starbucks are set to open in late summer or early fall, Conti said.
The town is also working with the owners of the Central Vermont Marketplace (formerly the Berlin Mall) on the New Town Center project, an effort to create a walkable area that can be a central hub for residential and commercial development.
“Whether it’s a major growth in residential or commercial, that all puts stress on the services we need to provide, whether it’s sewer and water, fire, rescue, and police,” Conti said.
Berlin has expanded its police force in recent years amid a rise in calls for service, such as those related to retail theft and property crimes, Conti said.
“When you have the number of businesses we do in the area, it, unfortunately, is unsurprising,” he added.
The town’s firefighters are also seeing an uptick in the number of calls in recent years, said Berlin Volunteer Fire Department Chief Joe Staab, adding that the bulk of the increase is related to motor vehicle crashes and commercial alarms.
Staab said he expects further staffing strains on the department with the anticipated commercial growth in the area.
“We’re looking at an increase each year of 1.6 to 2.6 percent in traffic, depending on the road,” Staab said.
Last year, the 17-member department changed its structure from a private corporation to the town’s municipal department, opening up more opportunities for grants, Staab said.
Conti said Berlin town officials have started researching how impact fees are implemented in other parts of Vermont, adding that they are “just scratching the surface.”
“We have to be smart enough to manage the growth and not allow it to manage us,” Conti said. “We have to pace ourselves accordingly, do a little better job of planning that growth so that we manage it properly so that it doesn’t get ahead of us and out of control.”
