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All that development going on in Pima County raised $19 million last year for roads that otherwise would have awaited taxpayer money to build.

The county's Impact Fee Program has been bringing in money from residential development in unincorporated areas since 1996, and a 2003 rate increase and new commercial-development impact fee helped bump up the revenue enough to get new roads built, according to a county report released this week.

The fees collected from development can be used only to expand the road system, and the money must be used in the area from which it came. That means impact fees from development in Green Valley, south of Tucson, cannot be used to build a bridge over Sabino Creek in the Catalina Foothills.

Since the fee inception, 13 projects at least partially funded by impact fees have been completed, 19 are under construction or in the design phase and 35 are planned for future construction, the 10-year report shows.

In the first year of the fee program, Pima County collected about $1 million in residential- development impact fees during the fiscal year that began in July 1996. In fiscal 2004-05, the fee brought in $18 million. The fiscal year before that, the fee brought in $9.5 million.

In 2003, in addition to adding an impact fee for commercial development, the county raised the standard residential-development impact fee to $4,400 per unit from $1,550 per unit. Fees vary for retirement communities and high-density housing.

The commercial impact fee varies by the type of business. A supermarket development would pay $2,970 per 1,000 square feet, but a medical or dental office would pay $3,220 for every 1,000 square feet developed. Those rates will increase in April and again in January 2008.

Some of the completed projects that were paid for, in part, by impact fees include:

● River Road projects: Including work done in segments from North Thornydale Road to North La Cholla Boulevard, La Cholla to North La Cañada Drive, La Cañada to North 15th Avenue and the section from North Campbell Avenue to North Alvernon Way, which is scheduled to open today.

● South Palo Verde Road, from Interstate 10 to the Veterans Memorial Overpass.

● The Catalina Highway from Tucson city limits to North Houghton Road and from Houghton to East Snyder Road.

● La Cholla: from West River Road to West Omar Drive and Omar to West Magee Road.

● North First Avenue from East River Road to East Orange Grove Road.

● Thornydale from West Ina to West Cortaro Farms roads.

● West Wetmore/Ruthrauff Road from La Cholla to North Fairview Drive.

The county spent about $6.6 million of its impact-fee revenues last fiscal year —from July 2005 to June 2006 — on building or expanding roads.

Several road projects are planned for county areas around the Tucson area and surrounding towns.

Among them:

● South Vail Road, Interstate 10 to the Union Pacific Railroad crossing.

● West Valencia Road, Ajo Way to South Camino de la Tierra (the section from Mission road to Interstate 19 is under construction).

● South Camino Loma Alta, South Old Spanish Trail to Colossal Cave Road.

● North Silverbell Road, Ina to West Sweetwater Drive.