[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by kappy

On Sunday, March 14th, and again today, the local paper enumerated all the reasons for not raising impact fees in Sumter County and there was another article on the 14th showing impact fees in all 67 Florida counties. The problem with all these articles is that they are inaccurate, misleading and they make very poor assumptions. 30 of the 67 counties have populations under 100,000. Due to The Villages adding 2500-3500 homes each year, you cannot compare Sumter County with any other county in Florida. Sumter County is unique.

In that same paper on the 14th, there was an article entitled, “ Villages Outpaced Most Metro Areas In Job Growth Even Amid the Pandemic”. And on Thursday March 18th, the front page read, “For the fifth consecutive year, Sumter County, because of The Villages, had the best credit debt rating of any county in Florida, according to SmartAsset, a financial services technology company.” So the local paper likes to paint a picture of gloom and doom, while they also say how well the county is doing. You can’t have it both ways.

The counties the Daily Propaganda compared to Sumter were either on the coast or in a major metropolitan area. All of those counties have slower growth because they are already almost fully built out and any remaining land would cost a small fortune. Sumter’s rapid growth is not because of lower impact fees, it is because in rural North Central Florida there has been lots of dirt cheap farm land available for development that can produce homes at a price point affordable to the masses of retiring baby boomers. Any homes built in Florida at a certain price point will sell because of both the weather and because there is no state income tax.