When new homes and businesses are built in Bargersville, developers could have to pay an additional fee to help cover the cost of building and expanding roads.
The rapidly growing town is considering ways to fund potential improvements to County Road 144, which is expected to see large increases in traffic as the road becomes one of three interchanges with Interstate 69 and as more homes and business are built along the route.
The primary challenge the town faces is how future projects on County Road 144, such as adding stoplights and roundabouts to intersections or widening the road, could be funded, town council member Ken Zumstein said.
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Johnson County and Bargersville are paying $158,000 for a consultant, HWC Engineering, to study current and future traffic patterns on most of the major routes through the Center Grove area. The information will help the county and town prioritize road improvements and make plans to manage the development of new businesses and homes.
One option the consultant has brought forward is the possibility of using an impact fee — a charge developers would pay when they get a building permit — that would be used to fund specific road projects, such as expanding County Road 144, Zumstein said.
The transportation impact fee is an option, and no specific proposal has been drafted and no votes are scheduled by the town council. But if it is eventually approved, Bargersville would be the first community in Johnson County to have a transportation impact fee.
While impact fees have not been used for roadwork in the county before, Bargersville, Greenwood and Franklin have all established impact fees to help fund improvements to their park systems.
Last year, the Bargersville Town Council approved charging a recreation impact fee, and developers or builders pay $748 for every home they build in the town. The fees are expected to bring in $1.3 million in 10 years, and will be used to improve and expand the town’s parks and trails. Franklin and Greenwood also collect recreation impact fees. Greenwood charges developers $1,206 per home, and Franklin charges $376.
Franklin has not chosen to use impact fees for road construction, because the town has been able to get by with its existing taxes, along with state funding and grants, Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett said.
Before a road impact fee could be established, Bargersville would need to fund a study examining the need for road improvements and how much those projects would cost. And the town council would need to approve the fees recommended by the study.
That’s a route several Indiana cities have gone. Zionsville charges home developers $1,009 per property. Noblesville’s road impact fee ranges from $1,452 to $2,393.
Any roadwork paid for with the impact fees would either need to be new construction or the expansion of a current road. The town would also only be able to collect the impact fee for infrastructure improvements that are necessary because of the new development, according to state law.
