At a recent meeting (5/11/09) of the Shawnee City Council an increase in developer's fees was approved.
Some additional info can be found by clicking here.
During the discussion it was ponted out that the city was basically subsidizing the developers because fees have not been raised in literally decades. The corresponding fees in neighboring cities are and have been much higher for many, many years. This came out at the council committee meeting and in the packet included with the agenda for the council members/and the public.
Now, Kevin Straub has told me he thinks I pick on him. Well, anybody with any common sense who had attended the 5/11/09 meeting would see why. In all of his wisdom he had the chutzpah to say that he deals closely with developers and the higher fees would inhibit them from coming to Shawnee. Councilmember Sawyer asked Straub if that was the case why haven't the developers been flocking to Shawnee all these years when many of the fees were 1/5th to 1/7th of the surrounding cities.
One thing about Straub...............on a cold winter day you want to engage him in conversation, as everytime he opens his mouth you would be warmed up.
He couldn't understand why the increases were so large. Councilmember Distler pointed out that if he had attended the committee meeting, or read the documentation in the council meeting agenda packet he would have had the answers. Mr Straub didn't take kindly to that...........but he did try to blow off with a lame excuse why he couldn't read the back up info. Ms Distler then advised him that even with the high percentage of increases many of those fees were still going to be lower than neighboring cities.
Then up to the podium steps Kevin Tubessing a local developer. He was looking to have the fee increases phased in over a two year period. Councilmember Sawyer made some comments about the fact that Mr Tubessing had received various tax abatemements on his projects. If I remember correctly one of the more recent abatements was front loaded so that a higher percentage came off earlier. The total was within approved limits, but just more of it earlier in time.
Fortunately, the council did vote to approve the fee increases. Ironically, the increased amounts that were approved were for the most part actually higher than what city staff had asked for, yet still lower in some cases than surrounding cities. Good move on the council's part.
Since Kevin works so closely with developers what has he done to bring any of them to Shawnee in the 3 years he has been on the council?
The packet from last week's meeting is on line and the minutes will be.
