Impact fee increase meets friction on County Council : Some call for another study

County Executive John R. Leopold's proposal for as much as a ten-fold hike in impact fees met hostile scrutiny from county councilmen yesterday.

During a three-hour work session, councilmen dissected the 32-page consultant's study, which showed Anne Arundel charges new developments around a quarter of the true cost to build schools, roads and to employ police and firefighters to serve new homes and businesses.

"The numbers that were produced were not based on one specific methodology," said Council Chairman Cathy Vitale, R-Severna Park, referring the study commissioned by the county administration. "That makes the numbers...