{"id":1131,"date":"2019-07-30T15:04:18","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T19:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=1131"},"modified":"2019-07-30T15:04:30","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T19:04:30","slug":"polk-commission-looking-to-increase-impact-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/07\/30\/polk-commission-looking-to-increase-impact-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk Commission looking to increase impact fees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Impact fees for Polk County Public Schools could more than\ndouble within the next three years under a plan currently under review by the\nPolk County Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional impact fees for local roads, parks and other\ninfrastructure would see more modest increases, probably beginning next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key question under consideration is whether the school\nsystem wants to increase the current collection schedule from 50% of the\nmaximum impact fee to 100% of the maximum, or somewhere in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the county commission has the sole authority to set\nimpact fee rates, it would take the recommendation of the Polk County School\nBoard fully into account, commission Chairman George Lindsey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission doesn’t have much time to decide, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioners have agreed they want to make the new impact\nfees effective on Jan. 1, Lindsey said. Given the various timelines under state\nlaw, that means the Polk Commission would have to enact a new impact fee\nordinance by Sept. 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impact fees are paid by new construction based on the demand\nit would place on existing infrastructure, such as schools, parks, jails and\nother law enforcement infrastructure, including buildings and vehicles. The\nfees are calculated based on the cost of providing new infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School impact fees would finance the cost of building new\nschools and other infrastructure, such as new school buses. Only single- and\nmulti-family residences and mobile homes pay the school impact fee in Polk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the numbers concerning school impact fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current fee since 2015 is $5,242 for a new single-family home, $3,348.50 per unit for a new apartment or other multi-family building and $4,243.50 for a new mobile home. Those rates represent 50% of the maximum rates of $10,484 for single-family, $6,697 for a multi-family unit and $8,487 for a mobile home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to an impact fee study done by the county’s\nconsultant, Duncan Associates of Austin, Texas, the maximum rates for new\nschool impact fees could rise to $11,997 for single-family and to $8,033 for\nmulti-family. The mobile home rate would drop to $6,679.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the county continued to assess the school impact fee at\nthe 50% level, that would represent a 14% increase for new single-family homes\nand a 20% hike per unit in multi-family buildings while the new mobile home fee\nwould decline 20%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The percentage increases are clearly much greater if the commission were to hike the school impact fee by those percentages and then tack ongoing from 50% of maximum to 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those increases are 129% for single-family, 140% for multi-family units and 57% for mobile homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To move that magnitude is a lot to take in one\nbite,” said Lindsey, vice president of development at Highland Homes in\nLakeland, one of the largest homebuilders in Florida, at the July 16 commission\nworkshop to review the Duncan study. “We’re all struggling with\naffordability. Anything we can do to help mitigate that is a step in the right\ndirection.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the workshop, Lindsey and other commissioners assumed the\nPolk School Board would want to go to the 100% level because of the need for\nnew schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are areas in the county where we can’t build\n(housing) because of concurrency with the schools,” Commissioner Bill\nBraswell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concurrency is the growth-planning requirement under state law that new infrastructure is built to accommodate the impact of new development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsey has proposed two steps to reduce the impact such as\na significant rise in the school impact fee in a single year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first proposal is to spread the increase from 50% to\n100% over three years. It would increase to 63% on Jan. 1, 2020, or $7,494 for\na single-family home; to 81% in 2021, or $9,746 for single-family; and the full\n100% the following year to $11,997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since impact fees are typically included in the selling\nprice, Lindsey has a second proposal that would make new homes more affordable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of paying the entire fee at purchase, the buyer could choose to take $3,000 off the impact fee for a home sold in 2020 or 2021 and pay that off at 7% interest over the following seven years, or $510 per year. The payment would be added onto the homeowner’s property tax bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022 and following years, when the school fee goes to the\n100% level, the buyer could take $6,000 off and pay it off over 15 years, also\nat 7% interest, for an annual $570 payment on the property tax bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The county commission should reconsider impact fees again in\n2024 and could modify them again, Lindsey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindsey said he has discussed his plan with Polk School\nBoard Chairman Lynn Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The question is how do we make this palatable without shutting down economic development,” Lindsey told The Ledger last week. “I think (the three-year phase-in) is reasonable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson argued the school system needs the money because it\nhas put off new school construction for too long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school board several years ago considered imposing a\nmoratorium on new home construction in some areas, particularly Northeast Polk,\nbecause it could not meet the concurrency requirement, he said. It eventually\ndecided against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We don’t want to get there again,” he said.\n“We want to get all the schools we need.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

School Board member Billy Townsend expressed a bit of\nhesitance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am reluctant to impose a massive overnight cost on\nanybody,” said Townsend, who is seeking re-election to a second four-year\nterm in November. “That makes me queasy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Townsend agreed with Wilson that more schools are needed in\nNortheast Polk and South Lakeland, he said, but in other areas, schools are not\nbeing used to full capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school board needs to consider how to fill those empty\nschool seats as well as building new schools, Townsend said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s less about any individual part than how it all\ncomes together,” he said. “Smart growth depends upon understanding a\nlot of different interests. There’s a ton of interests to balance intelligently\nand fairly, and that’s a discussion we need to have in the community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Impact fees for Polk County Public Schools could more than double within the next three years under a plan currently under review by the Polk County Commission. Additional impact fees… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}