FORT WORTH - While the city of Fort Worth is experiencing growing pains, the city council is trying to determine how to make developers help pay for roads, rather than leave the burden to general tax payers.

Karen Lampert said she takes pride in living in far North Forth Worth.

She loves cutting the lawn, but cutting through traffic on Old Denton Road makes her, in her own words, "very tired."

"I am going a round about way," she said.

She has lived in her new subdivision for six months and has seen efforts continue to widen the road from two lanes to four lanes. The project is still incomplete, creating traffic congestion and other problems.

"Right now it is very bad, full of potholes," she said. "It is easy for my car to bottom out."

That is the reason she said she supports Fort Worth City Hall's effort to make housing developers pay a street impact fee to help build new roads.

Neighborhood groups have been pushing for the fees, and city council members have been getting complaints.

"It is difficult to explain it to a citizen who bought a new home in an outlying area and says, 'Hey, I moved here. I pay city taxes. Why isn't the city building these roads and these streets? I thought that when I moved in here, the city would take care of that within six months to a year.'" said Carter Burdette, a Fort Worth council member. "And of course we simply don't have the funds to do it."

Fort Worth city officials initially proposed that developers pay $6,000 per lot, but developers thought that was outrageous and threatened to take their business to other cities. That's when the Fort Worth mayor came up with a compromise.

The mayor's proposal would charge developers flat fee of $2,000 for a single family home across the city.

Burdette said he feels the fee should be higher for developers building in outlying areas, which is where the city is experiencing a bigger growth spurt.

"My concern is we get this fee in place so at least we stop digging a bigger hole for ourselves every year," Burdette said.

But, first developers and city officials must construct a compromise. So, Fort Worth City Council is scheduled to hold a workshop on the issue on May 13.

News 8 did make an attempt to contact developers to give them an opportunity to comment on the street impact fees, however, no phone calls were returned.

E-mail ddenmon@wfaa.com