Warren County Commisioner Mike Kilburn's proposal to charge impact fees up to $10,000 for new homes and apartments represents selfishness of the utmost degree. He wants to penalize others who seek nothing more than what he and his forebearers sought when they chose to live outside the city. It is today's equivalent of building a walled city to keep the undesirables out.
It is a fact that our population continues to grow across the country. Unless we wish to stack people up in ever denser urban areas, new development is inevitable. Some see new development as unwanted and an invasion of their own personal domain, but none of us has any more right to affordable open spaces than anyone else.
Impact fees may help protect individual communities from unwanted growth, but at the cost of limiting housing opportunities for all but the wealthiest families. The result will be a community even more divided along financial lines - and that cannot be good for any of us. It is time to break with the "I've got mine, to hell with you" attitude and realize that we are all in this together. It is that realization that makes for a true community.
