Sumter County Impact Fees Increase
 

News Flash • Sumter County Road Impact Fees to Increase Jan

Posted on: November 19, 2024
Sumter County Road Impact Fees to Increase January 1, 2025

Effective January 1, 2025, road impact fees will increase for new development in Sumter County.

These one-time fees are assessed at the issuance of new building permits and help fund essential infrastructure improvements, such as new roads, additional lanes, and intersection upgrades required to support community
growth.

New Impact Fee Rates for Residential Development:
🏠Detached single-family home: $2,999
🏠Attached single-family and multi-family (three floors or less): $2,150
🏠Multi-family (low-rise less than three floors): $2,150
🏠Multifamily (mid/high rise more than three floors): $1,596
🏠Mobile home park: $1,101
🏠Detached home in a retirement community: $1,094
🏠Attached home in retirement community: $621

Impact fees for business developments will also increase. These fees apply only to new development and will not affect existing homeowners or businesses.

For a full list of impact fees, please visit our website:
Road Impact Fee Schedules | Sumter County, FL - Official Website

Sumter County remains committed to maintaining safe and efficient roadways as the community grows.

Does this get passed on to homeowners as a higher bond?

Super Cheap
 

Wow, those fees hardly reach an increment on the Florida scales compared to our other counties. They are 11,500 in Lake County.

Unrelated to the current bond but who knows what else will change. The additional cost for developing an area should be passed on to new homeowners as a higher price. It offers potential relief from higher taxes for existing homeowners.

Simplified (possibly over-simplified) example:
- In order to build out the area south of 44, changes were required to the existing roads in the area. Some were improved, some were widened, some were created.
- The County essentially contracted with an outside firm to have the work done.
- Part of the 30% tax increase a few years ago was needed to pay for that work.
- With a higher impact fee, more of the cost of those infrastructure improvements will be paid by the developer and less will come from taxes.

Fun Facts
 

To make things even more interesting:

Sumter County recently paid 50 million to the developer for roads around Southern Oaks. https://www.**************.com/2021/...southern-oaks/

Residents pay on average 40-50 thousand per home to the developer.

The developer is currently charged only about 1,000 per home.

I wonder who wins in this math paradigm?

As a one time fee, I would hazard, that the developer swallows addition , or puts it on final house purchase price.

For what it’s worth from Mr. Google the average Florida impact fee is just north of $9,000.00.

As I wrote, the County effectively contracted with an outside firm to have the work done. That outside firm was the Villages. Others may choose to analyze whether the pricing was competitive.

Is that some industry standard, do you have a source, or is it just a CBS estimate?

And has for quite some time now. The table is dated 2020 but I suspect the amounts have been the same since before then.

Note that the current increase of about 10% is the first of four increases. I haven't read the report yet but it could be that a 40% increase was defensible and was divided to four equal increases to abide by the State law that was passed the last time an increase was proposed.

What math paradigm? But in any case, the existing homeowners who will see less of a tax burden from future developments, the new purchasers who will still only see a minor increase on a $400K home, the Developer who might decide they can eat a $120 fee and still sell homes at a profit, and likely others will all benefit from this.

I guess I should have stipulated that home buyers pay the 40-50k per home as a bond payment for infrastructure all the while Sumter County also pays the developer for the roads.

The average terminology of course is because bonds vary by neighborhood. But yes, it’s is near impossible to find a lower bond from new home construction.

Different roads. The bonds pay for the infrastructure within the boundaries of a development. The taxpayers are paying for the new roads, and improvements to existing roads, that connect those developments to the rest of the County.

Are they putting in new Manufactured homes?

In the Villages, NO.

But other developers elsewhere in the county might.

I suspect the developer has worked it out so that the new home owner picks up the cost.

Everyone benefits from new roads.

New homes add over two billion cumulative dollars in taxable property to the Sumter real estate tax base each year.

Home owners pay more than their fair share for roads predominantly used by businesses, construction, under 55 people going to work, shopping, taking children to school, etc.

As a RETIREMENT COMMUNITY, one would think property taxes would be lower in TV. Taking into account none of us have school age children. Wishful thinking I know.

that the developer swallows addition ----NO

puts it on final house purchase price.---YES

The only difference is that those who purchase a NEW home pays the impact fees instead of spreading it out among all the county taxpayers.

Might seem fair, but consider this: All county residents might benefit from new roads, new fire stations and police presence, as well as the jobs created in the construction, service, and retail industries. It's not as clear cut as the poster previously known as "the avocado" would have everyone believe.

Those new roads would not have even been considered if it were not for the new development. All the work to create those new roads (Buena Vista extension and many others) and modify or improve existing roads (470, Morse, etc) was done only because it was needed to support the new development. Sure, anyone can use those roads now but the primary reason anyone would want to use the new roads is to access the new development. The new development had an impact on the road infrastructure - therefore a road impact fee.

That number might be a bit high. 3,000 homes at even $500K is only $1.5B.

Homeowners pay close to 100% of the cost of roads through property tax and fuel tax today. My property taxes increased a few years ago in order to pay for the roads supporting development south of 44. What is my "fair share" of those roads?

If you are referring to homeowners south of 44 paying for roads south of 44 that are used to access businesses south of 44 then that is exactly how road impact fees are supposed to be designed with the understanding that businesses pay impact fees as well. The homeowners south of 44 are not paying more than their fare share. Because existing road impact fees were low they are not even paying up to their fare share. This was part of the argument against the large tax increase a few years ago and the increase road impact fees shortly after that were blocked by a new State law.

The fees should be calculated to determine the impact not only of the new homes but also of the new businesses. Permits for new business properties are assessed impact fees as well as schools and churches. Any new construction that will cause more traffic and have an impact on the road infrastructure pays a road impact fee based on the anticipated magnitude of that impact. Homeowners don't pay more than their fare share, they pay a share that is calculated to be proportional to their anticipated usage.

I haven't read the new study yet but let's assume the calculations are accurate and fair/defensible. Note that the new rates apply to permits issued after January 1, 2025 and are phased in over four years. Together, this means that it won't be until after January 1, 2028 that a new home/business/church/school/etc is assessed an impact fee that accurately represents the true impact it will have on roadways. Until then, everyone is paying less than their fare share EXCEPT for existing county residents and businesses who will make up the difference in their property taxes.

Valid point, but there has to be some acceptable middle ground that doesn't come down to simply raising all our property taxes again.

Sumter County imposes road impact fees bizarrely. Why is it less in a retirement community? Don't opine that it is because the houses are closer as there is no requirement for spacing of homes to be a retirement community. If you want to base it on spacing, then charge based on frontage.

Could the different charge be a sweetheart deal for the builders of retirement communities? Perish the thought.

Lake County very sensibly charges a higher fee for a larger home.

Sumter has a road impact fee for a Hardware/Paint store of 472/sq ft But for a 24 hr convenience market, it is 22,333 / sq ft. A Supermarket is 6152 /sqft

Less in a retirement community: Fewer/no children requiring transportation to schools and events, older drivers making fewer trips

Sweetheart deal: I wouldn't bet against it

Lake county: How is my impact on the infrastructure greater if I live in a larger house? Bigger house -> bigger bank account -> more dining out -> more trips -> more impact??

Those numbers are per 1,000 sqft. Those numbers *should* be calculated based on the number of trips made to the store by customers, employees, and deliveries. Far more trips to the 24 hour convenience store than to the paint store.

Here are the road impact fees that have been in place since Oct 2020. The Consumer Price Index in Oct 2020 was 260. It is now 315, an increase of 21%. But the impact fee increase is only 12% falling well behind the inflation rate. Does anything think the cost of road construction is running behind the inflation rate?
From the end of 2020 just through the first quarter of 2023 the road construction cost increased 53.8%


210 Single Family (Detached) Du $2,666 increased to 2999 an increase of 12%
220 Multi-Family Housing (Low-Rise, 1-2 floors) Du $1,911 to 2152
221 Multi-Family Housing (Mid-Rise, 3-10 floors) Du $1,419 to 1596
222 Multi-Family Housing (High-Rise, >10 floors) Du $1,166
240 Mobile Home Park Du $979 to 1101
251 Retirement Community (detached) Du $972 increased to 1094
252 Retirement Community (attached) Du $552 increased to 621

Billionaires don’t become billionaires by paying for stuff they pass that on to someone else. It’s alway about the money and how much can be squeezed. Federal state county governments same, more than take in the more they can squeeze into their pockets. Nothing has changed since first man claimed land from others.

I would not be surprised if the very fact there is a discount for "in a retirement community" that provides a lower than otherwise fee is entirely due to the lobbying muscle and largesse of The Developer on their (and our) behalf. I, for one, am glad of it and appreciative - if it weren't for them we may very well be paying the counties entire impact fee.

Way better than throwing another 25% property tax increase at long time existing homeowners trying to get by on a fixed income.

Which goes away as that undeveloped land is turned into thousands of tax paying homes and businesses. Our milage rate is actually lower than 10 years ago.

There is a lot of confusion with this. There is a lower number for millage rate, the millage rate that the state considers to be neither an increase or a decrease, the actual amount that we pay, and effects of inflation on the cost of running a government. Pick your number and you can argue that we are worse off or much better off than we were 10 years ago.

Our millage rate might actually be lower but our assessed values are much higher leading to something close to a net zero change. If it were not for the 30% property tax increase in 19-20, our millage rate would be even lower today.

EDIT: If the 30% increase had not happened and all else remained the same (not likely) then our millage rate would be about 3.66 today rather than 4.89. That would be $366 less on a home with a taxable value of $300K.

The last time we had a true property tax decrease was the 21-22 budget when it decreased 1.4%.

Who cares what the millage rate is? What matters is the amount on the check one has to write. That amount is significantly higher than it was 10 years ago (our is up approximately 75% with no homestead exemption).

So wrong. So very, very WRONG.

My county tax, 2014, on an assessed value of $403,900 was $2302
My county tax, 2024, on an assessed value of $474,510 is $2076

So you're right---it's the amount of the check you write that counts.

PS: that's a 10 year DECREASE in county tax of 9.8%, so I doubt our only tax decrease was 1.4% a few years ago.

Doubt all you want but those are the numbers from the final budgets over the years starting in 17-18.

Are you using assessed value or taxable value? Is there a substantial SoH benefit helping the bottom line? Without the SoH benefit, I would be paying very nearly the same amount I did in the 19-20 tax year when the increase hit.

Doesn't matter, that's built into the milage rate. The bottom line is I paid $226 real dollars less than in 2014

On the contrary,
The Villages Charter Schools are some of the best in the state, with better facilities and better pay for the teachers and better programs.

They are part of the Sumter County School's budget. The School Board pays the Developer to lease the facilities, which he owns. I'm not sure about other sources of funding, but our property taxes are a major source.

It is to the advantage of all of us to have a well-educated population.
Also, having great schools helps attract a great work force to take care of us.
I am happy that our taxes support great schools.

What is built into the millage rate? My understanding is all residents of Sumter county pay the same millage rate.

*Some* (many/most?) residents, those with the Homestead Exemption, have their taxable value reduced by the Save Our Homes (SOH) benefit. Great for them (I'm one of them). However, the millage rate that we are all subject to remains at a level such that without the discount we would pay about the same amount this year as we did after the recent increase. Other than the 1.4% reduction in the 21-22 budget, property taxes have not gone down since the 30% increase. The amount you pay is less because your state-mandated discount has gone up.

Millage Rate Yes, Cost or Amount to Pay No
 

Millages may be lower, but the amount paid would be higher due to taxes of newly added or drawn municipal lines. Local taxes are additional now in The Villages south of 44. Much of the central section (except Fruitland Park) avoid those taxes.

Average homeowners south of 44 pay a city tax to either Wildwood or Leesburg which amounts to more than 100 dollars a month at about 1200 dollars a year. We happened to pay almost 1400 to Wildwood this year.

My mileage is impacted by how much weight I have in the car.