Gorham is grappling with whether to repeal taxes in the form of impact fees it now levies and collects on new homes before they’re even built.

Town Councilor Burleigh Loveitt, former chairman, said last week that current impact fees are inequitable and unfair. Loveitt said it’s a tax against people who aren’t living in Gorham now.

“It’s an easy, stealthy tax,” Loveitt said.

The Gorham Town Council directed the town’s Planning Board to review two impact fees – one for the new middle school and a recreational and open space fee – and offer a recommendation whether the fees should be eliminated.

Although no vote was taken in a Planning Board workshop meeting Monday, the majority of members seemed to favor keeping both impact fees, though the middle school one drew opposition.

The workshop was continued to 6 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 1. Town Planner Deborah Fossum said following this week’s meeting that a public hearing would likely be set for January and the Town Council would also have a public hearing before taking any action.

No one from the public attending Monday’s meeting, though Cindy Hazelton, Gorham Recreation Department director, and Mark Eyerman, a planning consultant, were on hand.

Gorham Town Manager David Cole said recently impact fees are one-time charges and are intended to make residential growth pay more of its own way as towns put in infrastructure to accommodate a growing population.

Cole said the impact fees in Gorham apply to residential building permits for single-family units. They would not apply to a building permit for a commercial or industrial development or to a building permit for a garage.

For example, Cole said, when the middle school was built, the town had an immediate need to build a school for 600 students. The school was build larger (for 900 students) because the town assumed it would need the space in the future as the community continued to grow. Otherwise, the new school would have already been filled to capacity the first day the doors were opened.

“The cost of that extra space can be paid for through impact fees rather than asking current taxpayers to pay higher property taxes to build the infrastructure needed to accommodate people who do not yet live here,” Cole said.

Loveitt said Gorham’s middle school and recreation and open space impact fees add up to about $5,000 for a new home, based on the number of bedrooms. But, he said, owners adding bedrooms to older homes are not charged impact fees.

“It’s not fair – that’s my complaint,” Loveitt said.

The middle school opened in 2003. Loveitt called the middle school fee “philosophically disagreeable” because the town voted to build the $22 million school in a May 2001 referendum. Fossum said Tuesday the middle school impact fee became effective in August 2002.

If repealed, the revenues would have to come from another place, Eyerman told the Planning Board. Sue Robie, Planning Board chairwoman, said some people could want their impact money returned. “The town would have a hard time saying no,” Robie said.

However, Natalie Burns, board attorney, said a municipality could repeal an ordinance without a legal obligation to refund money.

“I’m not in favor of eliminating it,” Robie said.

But, Gorham Planning Board member Tom Hughes, who said he isn’t against impact fees, argued against the middle school one. “There was no impact fee when the bond was passed,” Hughes said. “The voters knew what they were getting.”

Board member Michael Parker, who opposed the middle school fee as it now stands, favored tweaking the existing impact fee ordinance to make it more “palatable” to the Town Council.

Gorham’s code office collects the impact fees. Code Enforcement Officer Clint Cushman recently cited a typical example. Cushman said the middle school impact fee for a new, single-family home with three bedrooms would be $2,182.50, with another $1,715 for a recreation and open space impact fee. The total comes to $4,897.50, and the fees are not tied to construction cost of the home.