CHAMPAIGN – In a move that could be a step toward charging impact fees on real estate developers, the city council will be asked Tuesday to approve hiring a consulting firm for $98,000 to study the financial impact of new development.

A city memo said the staff doesn't have the expertise to do the job.

At least one council member, Vic McIntosh, said he's likely to vote against it and that he thinks the city spends too much money on consultants.

Council members will be asked at Tuesday night's study session to authorize hiring TischlerBise of Bethesda, Md., for $98,000 to conduct the study, expected to take six months.

The study will look at income the city receives from certain types of development, such as new property and sales taxes, compared to costs of serving that development, such as constructing new main roads and hiring additional police and firefighters.

The issue is more than just an academic exercise because Champaign currently has a $45 million funding shortfall for needed arterial roads over the next decade. Champaign is also one of the few larger cities in Illinois that doesn't charge developers impact fees for new arterial roads or require mandatory park-land dedication.

"The goal of the study is for us to better understand the true costs and revenues of development in the city," said Rob Kowalski, Champaign's assistant planning director. "It'll look at existing areas, and areas where we might grow in the future."

The study will also look at the costs and benefits of developing within the established city, called infill development, vs. developing on farmland at the edge of the city.

The study will help shape an update of the city's comprehensive plan, to be called Champaign Tomorrow, by identifying areas where the city can grow at a lower cost. City staff plans to begin work on the comprehensive plan this fall and to adopt it by next summer.

The city council has set as a goal this year to enact a "development cost recovery policy," which could include impact fees.

"If we're going to address impact fees in the future, this type of study is necessary to understand the true costs and revenues of development," Kowalski said.

Impact fees have been fiercely opposed by local developers, and Champaign would run a risk of losing development to Urbana and other local towns without impact fees, if it adopted them and the others didn't.

"We always will be opposed" to impact fees, said Mark Dixon, director of real estate for The Atkins Group in Urbana. "It's just another form of taxation."

But Kowalski noted that Bloomington and Normal have had impact fees requiring developer contributions for arterial roads and park land dedication for at least two decades.

A task force is currently studying whether Champaign, Urbana and Savoy should require mandatory park-land dedication from developers.

McIntosh, the city council member, said he thinks the city relies too much on consultants when work could be done in-house.

"I think we've been impacted quite well with all the development over the past 10 to 15 years," McIntosh said. "I'm tired of studies and the consultants either come up with what we want them to come up with, or we decide we don't like it and we throw it out."

McIntosh added he thinks the city has a great planning staff.

"We could do a lot of these studies ourselves," he said.

A city memo on the issue, co-authored by Kowalski, said city staff doesn't have the expertise for such a study and that doing it would require a significant time commitment and would likely delay other projects. He noted that the comprehensive plan update will be done in-house.

Mayor Jerry Schweighart said he'll support the study and that he thinks the city will likely have to adopt impact fees at some point.

"There's a lot of things we undercharge where we pick up the expense when it should be picked up by the developer," Schweighart said.