[Advogado]

Originally Posted by MIskra

I just read the Executive Summary from the Sumter County Board of County Commissioners, dated January 5, 2021 with the Subject of "Other Impact Fees than Road Impact Fees (for Direction)." The commissioners are researching the possibility of imposing additional/new impact fees. In this meeting they discussed the following impact fees:
• A fire services impact fee
• A law enforcement impact fee
• An impact fee for the public safety radio system
• A jail and court impact fee
• An animal shelter impact fee
• A recreation impact fee
• A library services impact fee
You can be sure that, just like the roads, more of these hidden fees will have a big impact on your wallet.

If impact fees are imposed to cover the cost of those items, the "big impact on your wallet" will be a fattening, as our property tax is rolled back when the Developer starts to pay his fair share.

[dewilson58]

To frame this up.......is this the math???.....round numbers......


25% tax increase generated ~$50,000,000 per year.
Let's say there are 2,000 new homes built per year.


That would tell me: It would take an additional $1,000 impact fee to reduce the tax rates 1 out of the 25%.


So if the Impact Fee would increase to $3,000.............county taxes could be reduced 3% to 4% out of the 25% increase (to be revenue neutral).

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by Advogado

Developer's sweetheart deal when he only pays 40% of appropriate road infrastructure costs.

Incorrect.
The grossed-up number from the 40% fee is unrelated to the costs South of 44.

[MIskra]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

[B]
So if the Impact Fee would increase to $3,000.............county taxes could be reduced 3% to 4% out of the 25% increase (to be revenue neutral).

Are you aware that funds collected from impact fees cannot be used for operation, maintenance, or repair of capital facilities? Also, impact fees cannot be used as general taxes to fund services or infrastructure beyond the requirements of the specific housing or commercial land development. The county's use of impact fees are very restricted, so I'm not sure that property taxes could be reduced 3 - 4 percent.

[rogerk]

Facts are facts! Just think about it; truth and logic are the facts. You may disagree with the conclusion but you can’t disagree with the facts!

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by MIskra

Are you aware that funds collected from impact fees cannot be used for operation, maintenance, or repair of capital facilities? Also, impact fees cannot be used as general taxes to fund services or infrastructure beyond the requirements of the specific housing or commercial land development. The county's use of impact fees are very restricted, so I'm not sure that property taxes could be reduced 3 - 4 percent.

Absolutely I'm aware.
Are you aware where the 25% increase dollars went??
That's the whole topic here.

[rogerk]

Originally Posted by airstreamingypsy

I live off 466A and I assure you my quality of life is diminishing because of all the development happening in Wildwood, and my taxes were increased 25% to have my quality of life diminished.

Think how much your taxes will increase if they weren’t offset by the businesses that choose to invest and build in Sumter County

[MIskra]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

Absolutely I'm aware.
Are you aware where the 25% increase dollars went??
That's the whole topic here.

The point is that there may not be a simple correlation between raising impact fees and lowering property taxes. There are a lot of costs in the county budget that, by law, cannot be funded through impact fees.

[Advogado]

Originally Posted by MIskra

The point is that there may not be a simple correlation between raising impact fees and lowering property taxes. There are a lot of costs in the county budget that, by law, cannot be funded through impact fees.

The voters decided (or we thought we decided) this whole issue in the last election.

By booting out the Developer's puppets and voting in the EMS team, we overwhelmingly voted to increase impact fees and use the revenue to roll back the 25% property-tax increase. How much it can be rolled back (maybe even more than 100%) will depend on the findings of the impact-fee study on infrastructure costs in addition to road costs.

The Developer (and his supporters on this site) are trying to undo the election results.

[BiPartisan]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the reduced impact fee applies to residential homes not commercial (review the Sumter County impact fees schedule), and limited to "retirement community" properties, otherwise non retirement communities properties are charged the full fee. The fee for a non retirement community is $2666 and for a retirement community is $972. The difference is $1694. or on a $300,000 home that is a .5% increase. Home prices in the county have increased by approximately 6.1%, so property values far outpace the increase in the additional amount that would be charged to cover the increase in the "road impact" fee and the developer already charges more for a new house today than in the past.
Regarding hurting business in the area... the impact fee is a one time cost at the time of construction permitting, so it would not have a long term affect on the cost of doing business, whereas the increase in property tax (25% increase) is ongoing annually and increases as the tax authority increase the value of the property, therefore ongoing taxes does affect businesses since landlords will pass on the increased cost of property taxes and the companies that own the building will either absorb the increase or increase the cost of goods sold to cover the increase in taxes.
As far as roads that require repairs, much of that is financed through tax collection (property and sales tax) and the gasoline tax we all pay when we purchase gas for our vehicles. If I recall, the county has approved plans for the Villages to build over 100,000 new homes which will drastically increase the tax revenues by millions annually through property tax, increase in gasoline and sales tax.
Increasing the impact fee will not cost the developer, but will be passed on to the purchase by the buyer. Reducing the tax increase will be offset by the impact fee and the additional tax revenues through the increase in the number of households.

[MIskra]

I also remember when the campaigning commissioners and taxpayers were outraged that our incumbent commissioners voted themselves, what was perceived to be, an excessive pay raise. Yet, I have not seen a single one of our newly elected commissioners volunteer to roll back their pay to 2019 levels. It does not take a vote to do that. Each individual commissioner has the ability to request a cut in their pay to whatever they feel is appropriate.

[MIskra]

Originally Posted by BiPartisan

Correct me if I am wrong, but the reduced impact fee applies to residential homes not commercial (review the Sumter County impact fees schedule), and limited to "retirement community" properties, otherwise non retirement communities properties are charged the full fee.

I am going to respectfully correct you. You are wrong. In the January 12th Commissioner Meeting, which I attended, the commissioners said that it is against the law for the county to disproportionally target a single business, or category of businesses, and impose impact fee increases on just them. As much as many of us would like to impose the increased fee only on The Villages Developer, their proposed increase would impact ALL new construction (they are proposing an increase of 150%). That includes new commercial, industrial, manufacturing, medical, and housing (retirement and non-retirement homes). There is a legitimate concern that this significant increase will stagnate the county's economy. There was an assumption by taxpayers in the last election that simply was not true. I applaud the commissioners who voted to put this on hold so that they can do their due diligence research. In the long term, it will be impossible to shift the tax burden away from residential property owners if anti-business fees keep businesses from investing here.

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by MIskra

...

In the long term, it will be impossible to shift the tax burden away from residential property owners if anti-business fees keep businesses from investing here.

Anti-business fees? That's an interesting way to characterize the additional cost that a new structure (home, restaurant, warehouse) has on the infrastructure.

Let's remember that the current fee are actually a 60% discount off the actual cost. "Raising" the fees is actually just doing away with a benefit that new development currently receives.

If Publix had a 60% off sale they would go out of business. In Sumter county they simply passed that on to the homeowners.

When my introductory offer ends with Xfinity I don't accuse them of raising prices, I accept that I was getting a break for the first year of service. And yes, I might decide that their regular price is too expensive and move my business elsewhere.

On the idea that businesses will move elsewhere: Yes, that's possible, but turning your back on 100,000+ customers isn't going to be easy. And if "elsewhere" is over to the neighboring county where impact fees are so much less then I guess I'll have to use the car rather than the golf cart.

(I am not unsympathetic to commercial establishments - the impact fees for those appear to be very high at the 40% level and would be exorbitant at the 100% level. There must be some reasonable comprise)

[Advogado]

Originally Posted by MIskra

I am going to correct you. You are wrong. In the January 12th Commissioner Meeting, which I attended, the commissioners said that it is against the law for the county to disproportionally target a single business, or category of businesses, and impose impact fee increases on just them. As much as many of us would like to impose the increased fee only on The Villages Developer, their proposed increase would impact ALL new construction (they are proposing an increase of 150%). That includes new commercial, industrial, manufacturing, medical, and housing (retirement and non-retirement homes). There is a legitimate concern that this significant increase will stagnate the county's economy. There was an assumption by taxpayers in the last election that simply was not true. I applaud the commissioners who voted to put this on hold so that they can do their due diligence research. In the long term, it will be impossible to shift the tax burden away from residential property owners if anti-business fees keep businesses from investing here.

Counties with higher impact fees do just fine. They are attractive places to invest because property taxes are correspondingly lower. If you really want the truth about the economic effect of impact fees, discount the BS being spread by the Daily Sun and the Developer's supporters on this site and read the analysis on the Flagler county website: Impact Fees FAQ: What Are They, Who Pays Them and Why | Development and Taxes

In any event, this whole issue was decided (or should have been decided) in last year's election with the ouster of the Developer's puppet Commissioners and the election of the EMS team.

[MIskra]

Originally Posted by Advogado

Counties with higher impact fees do just fine. .

There seems to be an attitude amongst us Villagers that because The Villages is a large, growing retirement-community, then commercial, industrial, manufacturing, and medical facilities should be scrambling to set up shop here. Let’s take a reality check. We are nothing more than a huge retirement community where most people are living on social security and Medicare surrounded by agricultural farmland. We have an undiversified population burdened by an undiversified tax base. If raising impact fees discourages business growth, this situation will never change. We are asking the commissioners to play Russian roulette with our county’s economy. We should be asking them to maintain their business-friendly policies and start looking at the other half of the equation by finding ways to reduce government spending instead of raising taxes and imposing hidden fees.