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Louisville Councilman Anthony Piagentini Proposes Sharp Increase in Developer Fees to Fund Road Upgrades in Fast-Growing East End
A proposed amendment would raise one-time system development charges for new homes, townhomes and apartments in eastern and southeastern Jefferson County, with the goal of making developers pay a larger share of the road infrastructure costs driven by new construction.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. â Louisville Metro Councilman Anthony Piagentini has introduced an amendment that would significantly raise the one-time fees developers pay to support road and intersection improvements in fast-growing parts of eastern and southeastern Jefferson County.
The proposal updates a 20-year-old ordinance governing the system development charge, a fee collected when new construction occurs and used to improve roads affected by added traffic. Under the amendment, the charge for a new single-family home would rise from $1,000 to $1,500. Townhome fees would climb from $500 to $1,200 per residence, and apartments would see the steepest increase, from $250 per unit to $1,000.
Piagentini said the changes are intended to shift more of the cost of growth onto the builders who generate it, rather than existing taxpayers.
"We don't want existing taxpayers to pay 100% of the infrastructure growth for new homes," Piagentini said. "Those new home builders and developers should pay part of it."
The councilman said the region's road network has not kept pace with residential development.
"We just do not have the infrastructure, particularly road infrastructure, to support all this growth," he said. "So we updated a couple things. The most important thing is we've increased the fee."
Piagentini defended the larger apartment increase by pointing to traffic patterns. He said new apartments generate roughly two-thirds of the road trips and car traffic that a single-family detached home creates on average, and that the revised fee structure puts different housing types on more equal footing.
The amendment would apply to Metro Council Districts 11 and 16 through 20, covering eastern and southeastern Jefferson County.
Beyond the higher fees, the proposal would require the city to complete infrastructure improvements at the same time as new construction, rather than waiting for road work to follow development. Funds collected through the charges would continue to be matched by Metro Government.
"We are now going to require the city to do the infrastructure improvements at the same time as the new construction is going on," Piagentini said.
He described the revision as a balanced approach to two pressing needs: adding housing while repairing and expanding failing infrastructure, with the costs shared by those contributing to the growth.
The proposal is scheduled to go before the public works committee next week.