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State Enabling Act To date, 26 states, including HawaiÓi, have adopted im pact fee enabling legislation. Like most other state enabling acts, HawaiÓiÔs impact fee enabling act for counties re enumerated above. HawaiÓiÔs impact fee enabling a ct, adopted in 1992, authorizes counties to adopt impact fees for any Ñtypes of public facility capital improvemen comprehensive plan or a facility needs assessment stud y.Ò A copy of the enabling act is provided for reference in Appendix G. The only use of this aut hority to-date has been the adoption in 2002 of a road 7 impact fee by the City and County of Honolulu for the Ewa region Counties in HawaiÓi are authorized by State law to enact impact fee ordinances, provided that they follow the requirements of Chapter 46, Part VIII of HawaiÓi Revised Statutes (Section 46-141 throug 46-148). This section provides a brief summary of those requirements most relevant to HawaiÓi Cou Generally, developers prefer to pay impact fees as late in the development process as possible, and most state acts prohibit the collection of impact fees prio r to the time of issuance of a building permit or certificate of occupancy. HawaiÓiÔs act states in Section 46-146 that ÑAssessment of impact fees shall be a condition precedent to the issuance of a grading or buildin before or upon issuance of the permit.Ò HawaiÓ i CountyÔs Corporation Counsel has interpreted this language to mean that the County may assess and co llect impact fees at the time of subdivision approval or building permit issuance. A fundamental principle of impact f ees is that new development cannot be charged for a higher level of service than is provided to existing developmen t. Section 46-142(b) states that an impact fee study Ñshall specify the service standards for each type of facility subject to an impact fee; provided that the standards shall apply equally to existing and new pu blic facilities.Ò If, for example, a County currently provides five acres of parkland pe r 1,000 residents, it cannot base pa rk impact fees for new development on a standard of ten acres of park land per 1,000 residents, unless certain conditions are met. Fi another source of funding other than park impact f ees would have to be identified and committed to fund the capacity deficiency created by the higher level of service. Second, the park impact fees must generally be reduced to ensure that new developmen t does not pay twice for the same level of service, once through impact fees and again through genera l taxes that are used to remedy the capacity deficiency for existing development. Section 46-143 (d)(1) requires counties to consider the Ñmeans, other than impact fees, by which ex isting deficiencies will be elimin ated within a reasonable period of time...Ò in formulating an impact fee. One way to avoid these kinds of complications is to base the impact fees on the existing level of service. A corollary principle is that new development should not have to pay twice for th e same level of service. As noted above, if impact fees are based on a higher-than existing level of service, the fees shoul reduced by a credit that accounts for the cont ribution of new development toward remedying the existing deficiencies. A similar situation arises when the existing level of service has not been fully paid for. Outstanding debt on existing fa cilities that are counted in the existi ng level of service will be retired, in part, by revenues generated from new developmen t that will also pay impact fees to maintain the existing level of service. Consequently, impact fees should be payments that will retire outstanding debt on existing facilities. The HawaiÓi enabling act addresses this issue in Section 46-143(d)(6), which provides that one of the seven factors that shall be considered in 7 Chapter 33A of the Revised Ordinances of Honol ulu (the fee for a single-family unit is $1,836) H Ó C \I N A ÐI F S September 19, 2006, Page 12 AWAI I OUNTY NFRASTRUCTURE EEDS SSESSMENT MPACT EE TUDY