Certainly once the debt has been paid off for schools, roads, utilities and other infrastructure, most homes and businesses generate enough tax revenues to be self-supporting. It's like a growing family. When the kids are young you need more "infrastructure" - e.g. a bigger house. And your big house is more expensive to run. And when your kids have good jobs and pay for a big 50^th anniversary party, you know it was worth it.

Managed properly, growth is an asset that provides jobs and revenues. But prolonged periods of high growth require public subsidies. Several hundred communities across the nation use impact fees to pay for schools, roads and parks. What does NC do?

NC is a patchwork quilt of fast and slow growing regions. Wake, and the adjacent counties, are the fastest growing counties (see map http://demog.state.nc.us/) while 70 of 100 low-wealth counties are either growing very slowly or shrinking in population. This polarization often results in deadlock in the General Assembly (GA) where most of the power resides.

If NC's growth is a patchwork quilt, NC's growth regulations are like a weird abstract painting. In the 1980s, the GA gave Orange, Chatham and Cabarrus Counties the power to collect impact fees for schools and other infrastructure. Six small counties in the NE have been allowed to collect property transfer taxes - an alternative to an impact fee. But since 1989, numerous other requests have been denied. Why? Here is the NC Home Builders explanation:

"NCHBA is continually faced with having to fight bills seeking to impose new taxes and fees on development and home buyers. Over the years, dozens of impact fee and real estate transfer tax bills have been introduced, but due to the uncompromising opposition of NCHBA, no such fees or taxes have been approved by the GA in more than 15 years. Nevertheless, local governments continue to request such authorizations, and the 2005 Session was no exception."

The gridlock in the GA has prompted counties across the state to find ways to pay for growth that do not require GA approval. They do this by extending their traditional powers to protect health and welfare. Such laws are known as Adequate Public Facility Ordinances (APFs or APFOs).

APFs say that if the roads are too congested, if classrooms are too crowded, if there isn't enough water, if the wastewater treatment plants are full, or if there are not enough playing fields, development cannot be approved until the problem is corrected.

A variation allows growth to continue if a fee is paid by the developer. The fee is typically passed on to the buyer. Although collected under a different set of powers. APF facility fees are essentially impact fees. Either fee collects a "toll" from growth. They don't control the rate of growth - the new infrastructure for which they pay promotes growth, counterbalancing the "toll." Neither fee can be used to pay for past under-funding of infrastructure or for major renovations - only for growth.

Five counties in NC have enacted APFs, including Orange County. Neighboring Franklin County and Union County are in the process of preparing legislation. (See www.co.franklin.nc.us/docs/planning/APFO.ppt for more details.) The towns of Cary and Davidson use APF's, mainly for roads and parks.

An obstacle to APFs is that they require cooperation between county government and local municipalities. Counties in NC have authority to regulate growth only within unincorporated areas. In Wake, about 80 percent of the growth is in municipalities. If one city enforces an APF and its neighbors do not, growth will tend to go to the city without APFs. An agreement is needed to deter developers from moving "across the street" to escape APFs.

If the county does not sign the agreement, experts predict the APF would not hold up in court. That's what torpedoed Cary's schools APF. Thus, in Wake, the County Commissioners must take the lead. That would be a major policy change. If County government, the school board, Raleigh and Cary signed the agreement, the bulk of the county would be covered and smaller towns would likely follow.

No business likes to be tightly regulated. But developers have instigated APFs by their unflagging opposition to impact fees. Collecting such fees would help development in the long-term. Who wants to move to a community whose schools are in trailers and supermarkets and whose roads are highly congested?

Facing $5 billion in school construction costs over the next ten years, isn't it time for Wake to have an APF?

Stan Norwalk writes frequently about schools. He was formerly on the Wake County Planning Board.