Sunset Valley City Council has refunded the Brodie Homestead Event Center $61,471 in fees that were collected 10 years ago because the city had yet to use them.
The fees were originally collected during the project’s development for watershed protection and mitigation efforts. Brodie Homestead Owner Dan Ross officially submitted a request for a refund because no efforts had taken place. The more than $61,000 had been represented as a line item on the city’s budget as a committed fund each year since 2012, but no specific projects were ever planned by the city for water mitigation improvements at the site.
City Attorney Roxana Stevens, who began representing the city this month, said the fees may have been incorrectly classified as a mitigation fee instead of an impact fee, which would have required a specific outline to use the funds in the future. Additionally, as an impact fee, because the money collected from the Brodie Homestead was not used within a five-year period, the city is required to refund the fee upon request.
Mayor Rose Cardona, who was on City Council when the fee was initially requested by the city in 2012, said she thought the fee was arbitrary at the time and was not comfortable collecting it from the beginning.
