Several residents and businesses will be getting a refund check and an apology from the city of Lebanon for erroneously collected impact fees.

City staffers recently discovered they had collected $62,521 in park and transportation impact fees that were improperly levied because the ordinance that enabled the collection has expired. The city has collected $1,912 in park impact fees and $60,609 in transportation fees for 34 new residential and nine commercial buildings since June 22, 2010, when the ordinance expired.

A memo from City Manager Pat Clements to the city council said the expired legislation was discovered when his office was conducting a routine review of the impact fee legislation as part of an analysis for a proposed development.

“The city had no legal authority to collect the fees after 22 June 2010,” he wrote. “And all fees collected after that date require refunding.”

The city enacted the impact fees in May 2007 and the city council approved new impact fee legislation last week. The transportation impact fees are $233 for a new single family home and $163 for new non-single family homes. Impact fees for new commercial development vary by the type and size of the business. The parks and recreation impact fees are $1,142 for new single family homes and $836 for non-single family.

The city’s attorney Mark Yurick said city ordinances usually don’t usually have a shelf-life, but impact fees are different.

“An impact fee is essentially a tax for a specific purpose,” he said. “There are very specific laws that govern impact fees and you have to have a study not only saying you need an impact fee but also supporting the amount of the impact fee and that has to be revisited periodically.”

Clements’ memo stated he will insert language into the annual capital improvement plan regarding the impact fees, the expiration date — the new law is in effect for five years — and the results of the annual review of the necessity for the fees.

Mayor Amy Brewer said as soon as the oversight was uncovered the staff worked quickly to rectify it.

“I think it’s responsible government, if we see a situation that needs to be corrected, we take responsibility for it and make the changes that need to be made,” she said.

There is another impact fee situation simmering in Warren County and Judge James Flannery is about to rule on who is responsible for about $1 million in attorneys fees for the Hamilton Twp. case that went up to the Ohio Supreme Court. Part of that case also includes a claim for interest on the $2.5 million the township impermissibly collected in fees.

Yurick said he supposes interest could come up in Lebanon’s situation as well.

“If somebody wants interest I think that would be taken on a case-by-case basis,” he said.