In this brief commentary, the speaker asserts that municipal impact fees—ranging from about $4,000 in some communities to as high as $28,000 in parts of California—directly raise the cost of housing and commercial construction. The speaker emphasizes that developers cannot simply absorb these fees without passing the added expense onto buyers or renters, countering any notion that the fees are a negligible burden on builders.
The reality is that when you add an impact fee, and it could be anywhere from $4,000 in some communities up to $28,000 in some areas of California, those dollars drive up the cost of housing. End of discussion. They drive up the cost of commercial building. End of discussion. You cannot, in real-world terms, think that those dollars are just coming off the hip of that developer or builder and he says, you know what, I want to give more money back to the government
