The DeKalb City Council voted to extend the residential development moratorium in place for DeKalb until Nov. 30.

The DeKalb County Building and Development Association asked for the extension to have time to respond to the proposed new schedule of impact fees and improved residential guidelines, said City Manager Mark Biernacki.

The proposed impact fees will increase from about $4,500 to $16,800, Biernacki said.

There are three school-related fees that make up around $10,000 of the fees, Biernacki said.

The proposed fees are very high and the residential guidelines are too strict, said Brian Grainger, president of the building and development association.

“We want to point out some of the big problems we are facing,” Grainger said. “[Such as] affordability.”

The city’s proposal is to design a community affordable to outsiders and not to build a community so much for the people that live here already, Grainger said.

The city plans to increase the impact fees by 300 percent depending on the size of the house, Grainger said.

The city is putting 100 percent of the burden on newly-built houses in DeKalb, said Steve Irving, a member of the building and development association.

Irving said he was in favor of increasing impact fees for schools, but buyers of newly-built homes should not be the only ones to pay.

“If a retired couple sells their home to a family with three kids and buys a new home in DeKalb, the family [with kids] pays nothing to schools in impact fees while the retired couple does,” Irving said.

One way to balance out the impact fees would be to instate a real estate transfer fee added to any new or old house that is sold, Irving said.

Cost of living in DeKalb is a major concern for these developers as well.

“If we’re not affordable, we will lose growth potential,” Grainger said. “It is hard to get growth to stop but [it] is just as hard to get it started.”