My views on the Developer's sweetheart impact fees and our 25% property tax hike are those of 2/3 of the Republican voters (and probably even a higher percentage of Dems and independents). That fact was evidenced by the outcome of the last County Commission election.

Could you answer one basic question: Who do you think should pay for the county infrastructure (not just roads) necessitated by the massive expansion of The Villages-- the Developer or the current residents?

By the way, if you don't like my posts, feel free to either ignore them or refute them.

Have you reviewed the budgets?

The majority of the increase was used for resurfacing of Morse and Buena Vista Blvds.

The road resurfacing was a one-time cost and represented about 50% of the tax increase, we should have seen a 10-12% decrease the following year.

For 2020, every department in the county increased their budgets with 10 to 20% increases.

No he/she didn't.
Just beats fake news that the increase went into developer's pocket.
Jus plain clueless.
:ho:

It is not a matter of budgets and earmarking. It is a matter of revenue sources. Money is fungible. I repeat the essential question here: Who should pay for the massive county infrastructure necessitated by the massive expansion of The Villages-- the Developer or the current residents? None of the Developerphiles who post on this site seem willing to answer that question.

The voters of Sumter County did answer it, however. It was the central issue in the last County Commission election, and the voters overwhelmingly decided that the Developer should bear that cost, not the current residents through the 25% property-tax hike instituted by the Developer's puppet Commissioners to protect the Developer's sweetheart impact fee. That fee covers only 40% of what should be his road costs and 0% of his other infrastructure costs, with the current residents making up the shortfall. As my original post pointed out, and as I think you would agree, it looks like the Developer has defeated the voters on that issue-- at least for the immediate future.

A whole lot to digest and comment on. Mostly, you seem to have determined that you are right and refuse to be swayed by any evidence to the contrary. That is unfortunate.

Getting to the reality of the situation *is* a matter of budgets and earmarking as well as revenue sources. If you want to end the 25% then you need to know what will be affected. "Money is fungible" is an important-sounding statement somewhat meaningless without further explanation. What were you driving at when you wrote that?

Perhaps the answer of who should pay is both since both the developer and the current residents benefit by the development. Is a 40/60 split right? Some would argue yes and some would argue no.

I'm pretty sure many of the voters didn't understand the need for the 25% increase and how much of it was applicable to the impact fees. As others have pointed out over and over, increasing the impact fees to a full 100% would not collect even half of what the 25% tax increase collects.

Much of the 25% was needed for the repaving project, something that the law prohibits using impact fees for. And as was pointed out in this thread, now that the money was collected and the one-time repaving is done, shouldn't that allow the tax rate be lowered?

Some of the 25% was used for increased budgets in several departments including salaries for the Commissioners. Others have suggested the current Commissioners criticized those increases as part of their campaigns. If that is true then the current Commissioners could reduce part of the 25% immediately by rolling back the salary increases. Has that been done?

As far as the lack of other impact fees, I have read in other threads that some of the infrastructure gets built and turned over by the developer. Is this true or is it not? If that is true then the developer is paying for 100% of the impact in those cases without the need of an impact fee.

(I see you were able to use both "puppet" and "sweetheart" in this post. I thought you were slipping the other day when I saw a post without both of those. Good to see that post was just an anomaly.)

"Some of the 25% was used for increased budgets in several departments including salaries for the Commissioners. Others have suggested the current Commissioners criticized those increases as part of their campaigns. If that is true then the current Commissioners could reduce part of the 25% immediately by rolling back the salary increases. Has that been done?"

State law, unless they changed it, mandates Commissioner salaries are tied to population. The more people, the higher the salaries. Not much they can do except, not accept a salary, and I don't know anyone, except for volunteers, who work for free.

This is what will happen by not collecting fees and a lack of accepting personal responsibility for the impact they make. When the roads become parking lots, and they will, as I have experienced this in other Florida counties, where they don't make people pay for the impact they create, is that in the future, road fly-over bridges will have to be built and roads widened. Then who pays?

You seen determined to remain intentionally obtuse but the developer will pay the fees.

The change is to limit the rate of increase over time.

I am not being obtuse when I point out the following facts:

The developer pays 40% of the cost of his county roads. He pays 0% of the cost of his other County infrastructure such as fire, police, libraries, parks, sewers, etc. Current county residents pay 60% for the roads and 100% for all the rest of the infrastructure.

The new state legislation, cosponsored by the Developer’s employee State Representative Brett Hage, is tailored to maintain that basic ratio.

State Representative Brett Hage was elected by most of the same voters that elected the 3 new members of the county commission which you bend over backwards trying to make seem like the Founding Fathers. Respect the choice of the voters, huh?

More misrepresentations. You need to go back and comprehend Don Wileys posts you ignored and understand what is fair.

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...09-post39.html

In addition, Developer pays for construction and operation of among the best charter schools in the country. And they don't ask that to be factored into the fees.

Developer provides thousands of skilled, high paying jobs to real tax payers enabling one of the strongest economies i the country.

We all benefit from Development in the form of reduced taxes and everyones property values increase.

You're drinking your own bathwater Scott...

For sure.

If not Scott, then the OP is heavily plagiarizing his "work."

Unlike the pro-Developer posters I have made no real effort to hide my identity. It is readily obtainable by simply looking at my posts on other sites. I do wonder about the identities of the pro-developer posters on this site and how many of you work for the Developer or one of his suppliers.

But neither you nor I are the issue here. We should be talking about the Facts concerning the 25% tax increase and impact fees. The basic relevant ones are set forth in my original post. I will leave it at that.

Are you the one stumbling around the squares at night under a tin foil hat trying to keep 'The Developer' out of your head?

You seem smarter than that, Stu.

Several people have referenced an article from Mr. Wiley that explain the impact fee; it really explains very well how the impact fee works along with other sources of revenue for new roads. It explains impact fees much better and more accurately than I can.

The developer pays 40% of the max that can be charged as determined by the 2019 impact fee study. All other developers also pay the same percentage of the max impact fees for their category of development that are often much higher than those for developers of over 55 communities. That is not 40% of the cost of the county roads. There are additional sources of revenue to help pay for the new roads; one other source is the gasoline tax collected from the service stations in Sumter County. Apparently there are offsets/credits--raise the road impact fee and the county loses some of the gasoline tax revenue and perhaps some of the other sources. The 40% of max when added to the other sources of road money was the amount determined to cover 100% of new road construction.

The developer pays for all the infrastructure within his villages; the new buyer assumes the bond for their share of that cost. The infrastructure for the new development within each village includes the storm sewers and the sewage sewers needed to support that development.

The developer builds the new fire stations, according to information derived elsewhere, and apparently gives those stations to the county as long as they are kept and used as fire stations. If they cease to be used as fire stations, the property reverts to the developer.

The developer does not need to pay an impact fee for parks because he builds parks and many other recreational opportunities into The Villages to support the needs of the new residents to The Villages.

As you know, road impact fees can not be used to offset repair and maintenance. They can only be used for new construction and for improvements to existing roads.

The developer also has plans to build an additional charter school for children of people who work in The Villages.