City commissioners are set to seriously begin tackling one of their largest campaign promises: getting new growth to pay more of its own way.

Commissioners at their Tuesday evening meeting are scheduled to begin talking about creating two new impact fees that builders of new homes would pay to help fund parks and major streets in developing areas.

“Developers are the ones standing to make a profit, so they’re the ones that ought to pay the additional, predictable costs of adding new infrastructure,” City Commissioner David Schauner said.

City staff members have not proposed dollar amounts for the fees, but rather are planning to use Tuesday’s meeting to brief commissioners on the concept of creating new impact fees. Both fees

ultimately would create a rate for each type of living unit built in the community – such as single family homes, townhomes and apartments – based on city research that will determine how much the occupants of those type of units would use new parks and streets.

“In a lot of ways, I look at this like a use tax,” Schauner said. “If I drive on the turnpike, I pay the fee; if I don’t drive on the turnpike, I don’t pay the fee.”

The idea of new impact fees has been frequently talked about by members of the City Commission – Schauner, Mike Rundle and Boog Highberger – who ran on a Smart Growth platform. The city currently has two impact fees that were implemented in the mid-1990s that charge developers to hook onto the city’s sewer and water system.

Developers opposed the creation of those fees, and several are expected to express concerns again. Ron Durflinger, president of Lawrence-based Durflinger Homes, said he had a particular problem with the park fee because voters approved a 1-cent sales tax in 1994 that was largely sold to the public as a funding source for Parks and Recreation.

Durflinger also said he opposed the fees because it seemed to be an effort by city leaders to extract more revenue out of the construction industry and homebuyers rather than focusing on growing the city’s tax base.

“This community keeps talking about how little money it has, but the actions of the governing body has really done nothing to generate new jobs,” Durflinger said. “It has been a lot of talk but not much action.”

Schauner said he bought only half of that argument.

“Have we brought enough new jobs to town? Absolutely not,” Schauner said. “But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been trying and that we’re still not trying.”

City Manager David Corliss said commissioners need to settle several key policy questions before staff members could start developing specific fees. He said commissioners need to discuss whether the new fees would apply only to newly annexed properties or whether they also would be charged to builders redeveloping properties in existing neighborhoods.

Corliss said the commission also could decide whether it wants to create a policy that would waive the fees for new developments that are considered affordable housing, although he said a definition for that term would have to be developed.

Commissioners are moving forward on the new impact fees despite not receiving the final portion of a $140,000 report that was designed to advise commissioners, in part, whether new impact fees were needed. Corliss, though, said the first half of the study, which was received in April, pointed to the need for impact fees to cover residential construction, although it also found that the addition of big box retail stores did the most to add new taxes to the community.

Corliss said he was comfortable in moving forward with studying the issue because impact fees have been successfully adopted in many area communities, including Lenexa, Shawnee and Leawood.

Commissioners will meet at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.