Minot – Town officials figured that new houses would mean more kids and more students.
The town has averaged about 30 new homes a year, according to Minot Code Enforcement Officer Ken Pratt’s records.
Yet school enrollment numbers show that fewer students are attending Minot Consolidated School than five years ago, according to Maine Department of Education data.
Two years ago, voters approved an impact fee on new homes being built in Minot to offset the costs of growth. At the time of the March 2003 annual town meeting, student enrollment was at 290, compared to 317 the year before.
“The intent is to address the capital needs of the school,” said John Geismar, chairman of Minot’s Planning Board. “If the town keeps growing, logic would say that there would be more students. But it’s been quite an anomaly here. I guess someone needs to look at what’s going on.”
Longtime residents Norman and Louann Gauthier, who are building two homes, said they were surprised to learn about the impact fees last June when they tried to get building permits.
“We went in and asked for everything we needed to know to build,” said Norman Gauthier. “We got a building ordinance and a fee schedule. There was nothing about impact fees.”
The Gauthiers purchased a larger parcel in town and decided to build a new home for themselves, and a second one for Norman’s elderly mother. The Gauthiers have an eighth-grade daughter who has been attending Minot Consolidated School since kindergarten.
Gauthier said he tried to appeal for a waiver of the impact fees because he wouldn’t be adding any new students to the school.
“I don’t mind it going for the school, but I couldn’t get any straight answers from anyone,” said Gauthier. “What really ticked me off, is that after I asked for all of the information, I find out about the impact fee when I go to get my building permit.”
Impact fees may be imposed on development to pay for future capital improvements. State law allows for several types of impact fees for a lengthy list of capital improvement project for municipal or school needs.
Such projects need to be identified and include a detailed cost formula and time schedule for project completion, said Matthew Nazar, director of the State Planning Office’s Land Use Program.
However, Minot’s ordinance is called “Community Facilities Impact Fee Program” and does not specify any school capital improvement project. No cost formula is included in the ordinance and none was available at the town office when requested.
School Union 29 officials, who are in the midst of proposing a budget to town voters that includes a capital improvement plan, are not aware of any intention for that money, said Assistant Superintendent Bill Doughty.
“We are aware that there is an impact fee,” said Doughty. “But there haven’t been any conversations about a specific project. In our budget talks with the town, we have not talked about how to use the impact fees.”
In addition, Minot’s fees are subject to review and change each year by the Board of Selectmen, said Geismar.
Pratt said that the town’s formula was developed from state education figures on the financial impact of each new student. He said funds from the impact fees, of which $66,000 has been collected so far, are being set aside for additional classroom space.
Geismar noted that the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments helped Minot to develop its impact fee ordinance. However, Geismar could not recall who the town worked with.
“The Planning Board did look at a lot of statistical information,” said Geismar. “There are formulas out there that have been accepted by the State Board of Education. That’s the kind the selectmen used.”
Minot’s ordinance allows the town to collect the fees, which are $2,000 per house up to four bedrooms, for 15 years. Each additional bedroom is another $500. If the fees are not spent by 2018 for additional class space, then the money has to be returned to home-builders, said Pratt.
State law requires that the fees be used in a “reasonable period of time,” said Nazar, who quantified that period as five to seven years.
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