A request for just under $20,000 for design costs hit a momentary snag and sparked a two-year-old question Tuesday night when City Council member Dan Gookin challenged who should — or would — pay for a future traffic light at the corner of Wilbur and Ramsey in Coeur d’Alene.

Chris Bosley, project manager and city engineer for T-O Engineers, asked the city for $19,900 to begin work on the design phase of a traffic signal design for the corner of Wilbur Avenue and Ramsey Road, a three-legged intersection that Greenstone Homes plans to turn into a four-way once land to the west is developed as part of the next phase of Coeur d’Alene Place.

In the April 25, 2018, edition of the Coeur d’Alene Press, Bosley said at the time a signal requirement wasn’t part of the original planned unit development when it was installed years prior, but if a traffic study requires a traffic light at Wilbur Avenue, he said the developers should pay the $250,000 price tag for the cost of a signal.

“The fact of the matter is,” Bosley said at the time, “when these developments come through and then a signal is warranted later, it comes out of streets and engineering budget and we install a signal to mitigate the traffic that was developed from all of these homes being built,” Bosley said.

Developer Kevin Schneidmiller said at the time his company has gone beyond codes and requirements at the Coeur d’Alene Place site and that since the 1990s, multiple neighboring developments have sprung up, adding to traffic and population increases in the northwest part of greater Coeur d’Alene. The developers and its homeowners have paid impact fees since development began. On the other side, the city has asked Schneidmiller’s team to pay for the traffic signal.

“For us to be solely responsible to perform a traffic study when we did proper master planning” isn’t right, Schneidmiller said. “We don’t believe it’s the responsibility as the developer of Coeur d’Alene Place to be responsible for traffic study.”

Attempts to reach developers after the meeting were unsuccessful.

While the two sides have yet to reach an agreement as to who will actually pay for the signal, the $19,900 signal design for a $250,000 signal at Wilbur and Ramsey came to the Coeur d’Alene City Council for approval. Council member Dan Gookin, however, had other plans.

“In this case, if the developer was going to pay $400,000 or so in impact fees for these homes, and this signal costs $250,000, that seems kind of disproportionate,” Gookin said, “a high amount to spend on a signal. And, of course, they’ll have to pay the impact fees anyway. But the signal wouldn’t be coming in if the development wasn’t coming in.”

Gookin added at the meeting that the city has neglected to update impact fees, citing only four updates in the past 26 years, allowing what he described as a wasted opportunity to help fund infrastructure needs in the area.

“These are fees normally, since I’ve been here, the city updates every year,” Gookin said. “… It seems kind of odd to me: We are still lagging on impact fees which could have gone up and would have helped pay for this.”

Bosley said the developers maintain they have paid their fair share through impact fees, as well as contributed to a traffic study to determine exactly where and how the daily commuters are impacting the neighborhood. The engineer ultimately said paying for the design does not commit the city to paying for the signal itself.

“I’m not asking for that [signal] money today,” Bosley said. “I’m just asking to get this design done so we can get incorporated with Coeur d’Alene [Place].”

Gookin, however, stood his ground.

“It seems to me the developer should pay for it,” the council member — who earlier in the evening was sworn in after winning re-election in November, told the council. “When Costco came in, they paid for their signal ‘cause the city told them to put in a signal. When Fred Meyer came in, they paid for their signal ‘cause the city told them to put in a signal. And when the Kroc Center came in, they paid for — with donations — the signal ‘cause the city told them to put in a signal. Now we’re going to be putting in a signal, and the developer’s not paying for it.”

The motion to approve the funding passed 5 - 1, with Gookin casting the lone vote of dissent.