Fees Information

What is an impact fee?

Impact fees are charges on new development to help fund the costs of designing, acquiring land, and constructing major capital improvements necessary to serve new growth. Impact fees also help recover the cost of constructing oversized facilities and expanding existing facilities. Through impact fees, a builder pays only the share of the costs needed to provide improvements based on the demand their new development places on the overall system. Impact fees cannot be used to fund operation or maintenance costs, or to cure system deficiencies generated by existing development.

Impact fees can only be imposed after developing and duly adopting a capital improvements plan based on land use assumptions. The City of Southlake has a duly adopted Impact Fee Ordinance (Ord. No. 657-A 2000) accompanied by a land use assumptions report. Roadway impact fees are collected at the time of building permit application and water & sewer impact fees are collected at the time of purchase of a water and/or sewer tap. The City of Southlake charges three types of development impact fees: water, wastewater, and roadways. The amount of the fee charged is based upon the amount of "impact" that an individual development will have on the City's capital facilities. The greater the demand a development places on these systems, the greater the fee the City will assess. Fees for each facility type are calculated, assessed and collected independently. In most service areas, the impact fee rates charged are substantially lower than the actual cost of serving new growth. The general public bears the remaining costs not charged to new development.