[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

My Guess: Inexperienced commissioners & county finance staff. None of them have been faced with the issue and did not know what to do. I think Sumter would have been successful in issuing a bond. The new commissioners have even less experience. Oh Boy.

I am having a hard time buying that. The commissioners had plenty of people point out to them that the impact fees should not be forced on existing taxpayers. Valuable information they obviously choose to completely ignore. Being naive is no excuse for a civil servant. For such an important decision, they could have easily justified hiring a consultant knowledgeable in such matters to properly educate them before voting.

I find it much more believable that they were told how to vote by those who they answered to, who are not the typical county taxpayers. That again begs the question, why did the ones who told the commissioners how to vote, not instruct them to explore issuing a Special Revenue Bond?

[kappy]

Unless there is a full 100% roll back, we will be paying that increase EVERY year that we own a home in Sumter County.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by tophcfa

I am having a hard time buying that. The commissioners had plenty of people point out to them that the impact fees should not be forced on existing taxpayers. Valuable information they obviously choose to completely ignore. Being naive is no excuse for a civil servant. For such an important decision, they could have easily justified hiring a consultant knowledgeable in such matters to properly educate them before voting.

I find it much more believable that they were told how to vote by those who they answered to, who are not the typical county taxpayers. That again begs the question, why did the ones who told the commissioners how to vote, not instruct them to explore issuing a Special Revenue Bond?

Not selling, just responding.
Not saying it's an excuse, maybe a reality.

But I believe the way it all shook out cost The Villages money. Even if the Impact Fee was tripled, it would not have cost The Villages a dime. $2k or $5k more in the new home prices would not have impacted The Villages. But the 25% increase was very costly to The Villages. Not sure the conspiracy theories of The Villages dictated the vote holds water.

[mrfixit]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

Bingo!!!!!


The 25% increase of approx $50mil is annually.
"You" must look at annual builds............which is about 3,000 per year right now.
Biker asked the increase to cover the $50mil ANNUAL increase.


If you are looking at the total 50,000 new homes......which is probably +10 years of construction, the 25% increase (all things being equal) will amount to 1/2 a TRILLION dollars.


Keep trying.

So, No Worries Then ?......

Since 1/2 a Trillion $ in total $... is only
..... $$ TEN MILLION DOLLARS... $$
...per home........for each of the 50,000 homes.

[tophcfa]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

Not selling, just responding.
Not saying it's an excuse, maybe a reality.

But I believe the way it all shook out cost The Villages money. Even if the Impact Fee was tripled, it would not have cost The Villages a dime. $2k or $5k more in the new home prices would not have impacted The Villages. But the 25% increase was very costly to The Villages. Not sure the conspiracy theories of The Villages dictated the vote holds water.

Perhaps we will never know the real truth? If only we could give some truth serum to the three ousted commissioners and get them to spill the beans on what really went down.

Originally Posted by biker1

I am not missing any point. The Developer will not pay. Any additional costs will be passed through to the buyers. By the way, I don’t have a problem with that. Did you work for the Federal or a state government?

Stop with the disenfranchised voter rhetoric. If someone wanted to vote in the primary they could have by changing their affiliation.

The developer had his puppets run as Democrats so Democrats couldn't cross parties. And now the puppets are under investigation for election fraud, specifically disenfranchising Democratic voters.

[Velvet]

The problem I see with the property tax increase is that the people who have to pay it (continually) are not the ones who get the benefit from it.

[Advogado]

[QUOTE=biker1;1879322]I am not missing any point. The Developer will not pay. Any additional costs will be passed through to the buyers. By the way, I don’t have a problem with that. Did you work for the Federal or a state government?

Stop with the disenfranchised voter rhetoric. If someone wanted to vote in the primary they could have by changing their affiliation.[/QUOTE

You have done a remarkably good job in attacking a statement that I never made. Neither I, nor anybody else, has the numbers for the revenue that would be brought in by a non-sweetheart impact fee. That is why impact studies are done by counties.

The Developer's puppet Commissioners enacted the 25% tax increase to cover the infrastructure costs arising from the Developer's county infrastructure. Common sense would tell you that a genuine impact fee would approximate that amount.

The point here is that the last Commissioner election was all about who would pay for the Developer's county infrastructure, and by about 2 to 1, the voters decided that the Developer would through a non-sweetheart impact fee.

It also doesn't matter whether or not the Developer can simply pass all the impact fees on to the new home buyers--which, by the way, he will not be able to do. If he could, do you seriously believe and his allies would have spent about quarter of a million dollars in a vain attempt to keep his puppets in office.

Originally Posted by Advogado

I am sorry, but I don't understand what you are talking about.

For starters, the new Villages area will consist of something like 50,000 additional homes. Increasing the ROAD impact fee by 150% would bring in roughly $1,200 more per home. That is an additional $60,000,000 of tax revenue from just home construction. I do not know how much more would come in from commercial construction and from impact fees for such infrastructure as government buildings, parks, libraries, etc., nor can I say (without seeing the results of an impact study) how much of the 25% tax hike can be rolled back-- maybe it all could be plus a further tax reduction.

You seem to forget that the justification of the tax increase was to pay for new county infrastructure, especially roads. If that is paid for via impact fees, it would seem that the tax increase should be rolled back completely.

The Impact Fee Law is clear and as you said a cost analysis must be undertaken. So Revenue Bonds and all those handwaving financing methods by pretend economics experts is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by biker1

I know, it was a thinly veiled attempt to find out if Avogadro actually knows any real numbers or is just spouting a bunch of qualitative nonsense. I agree with you that if the number is relatively small, say less than 10K, it can be passed through to the buyers without issue as they don’t seem to have any problems selling every house they can build. You have an idea what the real number is ? I couldn’t begin to guess without spending a bunch of time.

Avogado started a good thread based on Florida's Impact Fee Law which requires a cost analysis. Unfortunately, it has been hijacked by a couple of pretend economists and I would not bother with them as they descend into childish name calling.

[biker1]

Sure he will and you can't prove otherwise. Buyers always pay the costs. Did you ever work for a real company?

Originally Posted by Advogado

It also doesn't matter whether or not the Developer can simply pass all the impact fees on to the new home buyers--which, by the way, he will not be able to do. If he could, do you seriously believe and his allies would have spent about quarter of a million dollars in a vain attempt to keep his puppets in office.

[biker1]

I will try one more time. Anyone who wanted to vote in the Republican primary could have. They could simply change their affiliation to Republican, vote, and change back. Many people did this. Should it have been necessary? No. But anyone who wanted to vote in the Republican primary could have with very little effort.

Originally Posted by John41

The developer had his puppets run as Democrats so Democrats couldn't cross parties. And now the puppets are under investigation for election fraud, specifically disenfranchising Democratic voters.

[Altavia]

Originally Posted by Velvet

The problem I see with the property tax increase is that the people who have to pay it (continually) are not the ones who get the benefit from it.

Every taxpayer benefits from new development in the form of taxes paid by the new homes and businesses. This is why taxes in Sumter remain among the lowest in Florida.

New homeowners also pay far more than their fair share compared to those who purchased homes years ago.

[Velvet]

I am glad that people are enjoying the subsidization of their new homes. But I still don’t think that forced charity from older home owners is the best way to go.

[Advogado]

Originally Posted by Velvet

I am glad that people are enjoying the subsidization of their new homes. But I still don’t think that forced charity from older home owners is the best way to go.

You are right, and the great majority of voters agreed with you in the last election. By overwhelmingly electing the EMS Team as County Commissioners, the voters decided that the costs of the Developer's infrastructure should be borne by the Developer in the form of a reasonable impact fee. This has been decided.

A couple of posters have been naively arguing that the Developer will simply pass along all his increased costs in the form of higher prices for the new houses and wouldn't take a profit hit. They are wrong, but it really doesn't matter. The point is, even if the Developer could do so, it would be irrelevant to the real issue being discussed here. Whether or not the Developer takes a profit hit from imposition of a reasonable impact fee, the CURRENT owners would still not be bearing infrastructure costs that should not be theirs.