Baltimore County to legalize/impose impact fees on new development

The only reason I am writing about this is in the draft document I created for the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan, I had a section on potential revenue sources to pay for additions to pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.

One of the potential sources I listed was development impact fees, which are assessed in other Maryland jurisdictions such as Montgomery and Prince George's Counties.

That section was excised in complete, from the document.

-- "Bills would let Baltimore County impose fees on developers to help build schools," Baltimore Sun
-- "Developer fees won't solve all of Baltimore County's problems, but that's no reason not to enact them," Baltimore Sun

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Baltimore County is famed for it's "pay as you go" financing system for infrastructure.  They don't, although this is starting to change because of the redevelopment of the old Bethlehem Steel Sparrows Point facility, do "Tax Increment Financing" or the selling of bonds to pay for infrastructure, to be paid off by future revenues leveraged by development of lands "opened up" by the new infrastructure.

This also came up wrt a proposed redevelopment of an area near the Falls Road Light Rail Station, which was park proximate, with trail potential, of an area used for industrial purposes but was otherwise surrounded by residential.

I explained that without putting in the road network first, you'd never get it to happen.  The person who is now planning director discussed somewhat tangentially how $10,000 facade grants can lead to subsequent private investment...

The advantage of PAYGO is that when faced with recession, the County usually isn't encumbered by obligations it is then unable to pay. 

But now that the County's greatest period of economic growth is over, and the once successful industrial enterprises are closing as firms consolidate, go out of business, or relocate, the County has less money coming in, and will need to look to different funding sources to fund newly needed infrastructure, as well as to fund repairs and maintenance of existing infrastructure.