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On Monday the Missoula City Council will vote on whether to raise impact fees on new construction 10%.

Impact fees are charged by the City of Missoula on all new construction as a part of the permit process. Other fees the city charges for new development are sewer development fees, plan review fees, etc.

Impact fees are used, in part, to fund capital improvement projects within the city. I fully support the projects impact fees help pay for. These projects make for a better, more livable Missoula. However, impact fees are unfairly burdening a few (new development) for the benefit of the many (everyone else living in and benefiting from the improvements paid for by impact fees).

City administrators like to say these fees are a way for development to pay its “fair share.” This is inaccurate and shows a lack of creative financing.

Last year around $1.2 million was raised through impact fees. They are charged to one entity — builders and developers — but are then passed along as the cost of construction to the family that buys a home, the entrepreneur building a new brewpub and even the renter in the new multiplex.

The end payer is often blind to these costs.