The Concord Planning Board asked neighboring Pembroke for 150 thousand dollars late last month.
Observors call the request unprecedented.
Concord wants the town to pay for the cost to the City of a commercial development next door.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Rachel Estabrook reports.
An impact fee ordinance allows a municipality to bill a developer for the costs of the imparct of a construction project.
Each city and town determines their own guidelines.
The rules allow the municipalities to cover the cost of improving roads, schools, or housing in the area that may be affected by new development.
The city of Concord has an impact fee ordinance.
The town of Pembroke does not.
So when Pembroke announced plans to allow the Associated Grocers of New England to build a distribution center in the town, Concord took issue.
City Planners have asked Pembroke to apply a fraction of Concord’s impact fees and send the money back to Concord.
They point out that the new warehouse will be is so close to the Concord border that the increased truck traffic will be using roads that Concord has to pay for.
State law mandates that local impact fees must be applied to local costs.
Seems simple, but Chris Northrop of the state office of Energy and Planning says the law implies the impact fee must be assessed by Pembroke .
TAPE: the statute reads as though the impact fee is to be assessed and applied on impacts that are happening in the home community, not necessarily for regional impacts in the surrounding area.
But Northrop says the law is ambiguous.
And he adds that the legality of Concord’s request may have to be decided in court.
Members of the Concord Planning Board were unavailable for comment for this story.
But at this point it’s up to the Pembroke Planning Board to accept or deny its neighbor’s request.
Planning board member Roland Lemoine does not support giving Concord any money.
He says Concord is just looking for help in repairing the overly well traveled Manchester Street, also known as Route 3.
TAPE: they’re trying to do is, most likely, help them with that Manchester Street project. I mean anything anybody can get to help reduce their taxes, I mean I don’t blame them, I’d probably try to do the same thing. But whether you get it or not is another story.
Developers are usually responsible for paying any city-ordered land use fees.
But Lemoine says he would not even consider asking the Associated Grocers in this case.
And even if Pembroke does turn to the Grocers, the state's Chris Northrop says the company may balk at paying fees to a city that is legally uninvolved with its project.
TAPE: That might raise an appeal from the developers who might say, wait a minute, you have no right to impose some other town’s impact fee on me since I’m not developing in the other town, I’m developing in your town.
And as Pembroke Planning Board member Roland Lemoine suggests, Concord may want to consider the precedent that might be set.
Concord has plans for more shopping malls not far from the border with Pembroke.
TAPE: there’s another mall going up on 106, which they sent us a letter on. maybe we should check it out and see what kind of impact fees we could give them.
The Pembroke planning board has a regularly scheduled meeting on the 4th Tuesday of the month.
Concord's letter is expected to be on the agenda.
For NHPR News, I’m Rachel Estabrook.
