Edmund Haas, vice president and transportation planning manager for the consulting firm Freese and Nichols Inc., gives a presentation on the 2023 Brownsville Roadway Capital Recovery Fee. Haas said taxpayers are currently shouldering the full burden for new roads and maintenance of existing roads. Estefania Ramirez/THE RIDER PHOTOS
The Brownsville City Commission has voted to extend the public hearing on the proposed Roadway Capital Recovery Fee until Jan. 16, 2024, to receive more input from residents.
Edmund Haas, a consultant from the Freese and Nichols Inc. engineering, planning and consulting firm based in Fort Worth, gave the presentation on the program during the commission’s Oct. 17 meeting.
The CRF is a one-time charge imposed on new development to fund specific capital improvements, such as new roads or widenings necessitated and attributable to new development over a 10-year planning period, according to the agenda packet.
In a phone interview Oct. 31, The Rider asked District 3 City Commissioner Roy De los Santos who will be charged the fee.
De los Santos replied the recovery fee would apply to “an existing citizen of Brownsville who has a piece of property they decide to develop.”
“The value of the fee will be predicated on size, type and location of the project,” Haas told the commission.
The technical study prepared in September showed 19 service areas spanning the current city limits.
“Monies that are collected through the CRF are put into 19 separate bank accounts,” Haas said.
The funds that are collected from the Roadway Capital Recovery Fee would fuel projects that are identified in the CRF/Capital Improvement Plan.
The projects are rooted in the newly adopted BTX Mobility Plan, with 130 projects already identified worth $565 million.
“These [projects] are road widenings or flat-out new roads,” Haas said.
Implementation of the program, if approved by the city commission, will be delayed by 12 months based on the recommendation of the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee.
In a memo to the mayor and commission dated Sept. 5, Juan Pequeño, chairman of the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee, wrote that the committee recommends:
–approval of the Land Use Assumptions and associated population and employment growth forecasts over the 10-year planning period 2023-2033
–approval of the capital recovery fee Capital Improvement Plans for roads and the calculated cost per service unit for each service area
–approval of the calculated maximum collection rate per service unit, as outlined in the table.
The committee also recommended the program be initiated at a low rate and incrementally increase collections.
“There is a delayed start to be more developer friendly and, from a city side, getting the systems in place,” Haas said.
The start date would be October 2024; from there, it would have a one-year grace period.
The residential fee would generally be $2,000 per dwelling unit based on the service area.
There would be a 5% annual increase after that until the first programmatic update in five years.
For any non-residential development, the fee would be generated based on land use equivalency tables.
“This considers the size, type and location of development, and also a 5% increase until the first programmatic update in five years,” Haas said.
The Roadway Capital Recovery Fee also has exemptions. Any land uses inside the Historic Downtown would be exempt from the fee.
Commissioner De los Santos said there should be a method for residents to provide feedback outside of hosted meetings.
Ramiro Martinez, president of the Brownsville-South Padre Island Board of Realtors, told the city commission the Roadway Capital Recovery Fee would be detrimental to the community and the future development of Brownsville.
“Doing business in Brownsville is difficult due to high fees,” Martinez told the commission.
He said the “exorbitant” fee will hinder development of subdivisions and housing construction, as well as increase home prices.
“It will prohibit people from the dream of house ownership,” Martinez said.
Brownsville resident Caty Presas-Garcia also spoke against the proposed fee.
“None of you understand what we will go through if you don’t bring us to the table,” Presas-Garcia told the commission.
She said residents no longer trust what is brought to them and they want to be part of the solution.
“As citizens we ask, we plead, we beg,” Presas-Garcia said.
Haas recommended that the commission extend the public hearing “in order to provide more time for discussion and engagement with the development community, with homeowners associations and others interested.”
De los Santos made a motion to extend the public hearing to Jan. 16, 2024, and the motion passed unanimously.
