Many of the hot issues in Island County today are the result of population increases. Whether it’s septic systems, schools, or maintaining roads and other services, funding is always the primary concern. One source of funding used in other counties, in other states, is mitigation charges. As you probably know, even in Washington, school districts and other entities have found it necessary to charge developers and builders a mitigation fee.

The reasons? With new growth, especially rapid growth, school population increases, road maintenance costs escalate, new roads are required, and other services such as law enforcement, public health, community planning, and others are unable to keep up with their obligated tasks due to lack of funds.

So what is the answer? Higher property taxes? That’s probably inevitable, but increases in property taxes could be reduced if mitigation fees were charged to new home construction and to new or expanded housing developments. With the average property values increasing annually, it seems not only fair, but absolutely necessary for these projects to pay according to their size and value. The fee schedule should be graduated so that a new house of 1,000 square feet or less would cost $1,000 in mitigation fees and the larger the house, the higher the percentage of the fee. A similar plan could be established for developments in addition to the houses themselves.

It’s really too bad such a plan wasn’t incorporated a decade ago when we started to see really big homes going up all over the island. For example, a home of 4,000 square feet worth $750,000 could provide $30,000 (4 percent) in mitigation fees, a drop in the bucket for anyone who can afford such a home, but distributed to schools and the county, it would be significant. Well, it’s not too late to start. As the governor of Caleefornia would say, “Do it now!”

Jerry Mercer

Greenbank