Woodstock officials slash development fees for single-family homes in half

Woodstock City Council member Bob Seegers Jr. voted against a proposal to cut city development fees in half for single-family homes last week, taking a stand against the 6-1 majority in favor of the idea because he wanted to slash them by even more, perhaps all the way to zero.

With the council vote approving the pitch by Woodstock Mayor Mike Turner, the next 100 single-family home blueprints sent to the desks of city planning staff will receive the 50% discount on their building permit and impact fee costs.

The policy expires at the end of June 2023 if the city receives less than 100 applications over that time.

Seegers sought both a bigger reduction in fees – which send funds to Woodstock’s library, firefighting agency and the Woodstock School District 200 school system, among other public services, to offset the costs created by new growth – as well as a higher number of homes the discounts could apply to.

He argued Woodstock may still be passed over by developers for other regional municipalities making similar moves, with some towns looking to eliminate such costs altogether in attempts to rejuvenate local economies from the damage caused by COVID-19.

“To me it looks like this window is small, and we need to get hot on it now and not chase the rest of the communities down,” Seegers said. “Woodstock has ample capacity for growth.”

About 211 single-family homes sites are ready for immediate construction in Woodstock, according to city officials, many of them in upscale areas and some where the builder DR Horton has been active recently.

City staff broke down which neighborhoods have the most such lots:

• Sanctuary: 110
• Country Ridge: 29
• Ponds of Bull Valley: 27
• Bull Valley Golf Club: 16
• Fairview Estates: 12
• Ponds of Bull Valley: 5
• Others: 12

The move meant to attract single-family home development to Woodstock comes as city officials reported receiving more building inquiries from both DR Horton as well as custom-home builders, marking a change as custom-home interest has been quite dormant for a decade, according to a city staff memo.

The District 200 school board last month briefly discussed the 50% reduction in fees, and its members raised no formal objections to it.

“If they keep the fees at half, and it results in 100 homes of a fairly higher value, that’s contributing [taxable value] to the district. It should offset itself,” school board President Carl Gilmore said. “If it doesn’t do that, then perhaps we’d have some concerns down the road.”

Turner discussed his proposal to cut the fees by half with school board officials ahead of last week’s decision, but he did not take their temperature on any larger reductions, like those desired by Seegers.

The policy could be revisited, depending on how much construction activity and buzz in development circles the lower fees generate, officials said.

“Coming out of COVID and given the demand in the marketplace, in order to put Woodstock in the best position possible to capture new growth, which has tremendous potential for additional property tax revenue, I felt this was a worthwhile initiative to put forth,” Turner said.

The city will require developers that are charged the lower impact fees to obtain building permits and finish construction on faster timelines than would be mandated under normal city charges, to prevent developers from applying for permits at the lower prices and then stalling on starting work.