To say that the Developer "will not care" demonstrates your lack of understanding of economics, business, the history of the Developer's impact fee, and the Developer's maneuvering to try to maintain his sweetheart deal. Costs matter to any business, and higher impact fees will be a cost to the Developer. Why do you think the Developer's puppet Bret Hage (who has an obvious conflict of interest since he works for T&D, one of the Developer's largest suppliers) is co-sponsoring HB 337 if the Developer "will not care" if he finally has to pay for his infrastructure?

Furthermore, it doesn't matter to us, the current residents, if the Developer raises his house prices because he finally has to pay the infrastructure costs of his massive expansion of The Villages. Then the cost of the new infrastructure is passed on to the people who necessitate it.

To say that the Developer "will not care" demonstrates your lack of understanding of economics, business, and the Developer's maneuvering to try to maintain his sweetheart deal. Costs matter to any business, and higher impact fees will be a cost to the Developer. Why do you think the Developer's puppet Bret Hage (who has an obvious conflict of interest since he works for T&D, one of the Developer's largest suppliers) is co-sponsoring HB 337 if the Developer "will not care" if he finally has to pay for his infrastructure?

Furthermore, it doesn't matter to us, the current residents, if the Developer raises his house prices because he finally has to pay the infrastructure costs of his massive expansion of The Villages. Then the cost of the new infrastructure is passed on to the people who necessitate it.

See you at the meeting, April 13th, 7pm, Everglades rec center . Save the date. Voice your opinion !

This is hardly a matter for a lawsuit against the Commissioners - however, think about it, the Commissioners want to increase the Impact fee for new construction and the developer and friends fight back. They even go so far as to get legislation passed to cap their potential expense. Then the Commissioners send out a notice to residents that (due to future construction) the Fire District needs money to keep up with all the new construction. What??? How about if we all just give the developer one of our credit cards and they can use it to continue all this building. Thank you to the Commissioners who are trying to expose the machine at work.

You better have somebody drop you off, there won’t be any place to park.

Here is a couple of facts for those wondering about the Fire Protection Assessment. First, the Villages Safety Division received a FEMA grant last year in October to cover the costs of the additional firemen needed in The Villages. Here is the official info:

The Villages Public Safety Department has been awarded a multi-million-dollar grant to hire new 27 firefighters.

The $6.52 million SAFER grant was awarded by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. It provides funding for the firefighters for three years, which includes salary and benefits. And unlike in past years when similar grants were awarded, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, departments that received the SAFER grants won’t be required to provide any kind of matching funds.

Second, I wondered what the Fire Protection Assessment covered and found this from Lake County and presume our Sumter County/The Villages fee is used for similar purposes:

Question: What is Lake County's present Residential Fire Assessment Fee?
Answer: The current fee is $206 for Fire Protection. This fee is used for firefighters' salaries, as well as to buy necessary equipment and to pay for operating expenses such as fuel and health insurance. Property owners pay this flat fee once a year, no matter how many times the fire department is called to their home or property for assistance.

It is not a tax it is an impact fee. This is the money used to build all those roads south of 44 that if they weren't there the developer would not be able to build houses down there. The tax payers are subsidizing the developer with higher taxes to offset the sweetheart impact fee that the developer gets. This new bill is the developer going to the state to over ride the commissioners wanting to raise the fee.

The Developer pays a fire impact fee of 0%. What a surprise that the residents have to pick up the tab for the increased fire stations and equipment necessary as a result of the Developer's massive expansion of The Villages. Yet we still have a small number of hard-core Developer-philes posting, on this website, a defense of the Developer's sweetheart deal on impact fees.

If you read the letter they want to raise the cap on the fire assessment that is currently at $126. This has been in place for 14 years and they are butting up to it at $125. The new development is not what is increasing the cost because every house pays the fee. What is increasing the cost is inflation. They are just increasing the cap on what they can charge.

What is in the background is the Developer's sweetheart impact fee of 0% for the fire stations and equipment necessitated by his massive expansion of The Villages. Tell the Commissioners to get moving on enacting realistic impact fees.

Correct.
It's just increasing the Max Available.
When the fee goes to the max some day, it's $1 per day per house.
A lot of bad odor rising off of stale guacamole.

$360
 

So if they raised it to the allowable it would be $360.

While I "sort" of understand the issue at hand, that this is merely a decision to increase the maximum fire protection assessment from $125 to $360, it doesn't indicate that we in Sumter County will see this increase anytime soon. Yeah, right! If it is increased for future operations then you can bet the future will be here before you know it. The largest population in Sumter is here in The Villages. What are the assessment rates in Lake and Marion, which also is part of The Villages? How long has the maximum $125 been in effect from what it was before. Are the yearly calls for service by fire and EMS at such an increasing rate that it requires the fire assessment to be raised more than 200%? Look, folks, I want a good safety force too, but we are not New York City, where calls for service are a constant. We don't have the monstrous office buildings, and very few high rises in our county to address should there be a fire. We are mostly retired, older people on fixed incomes and many will not be in a position to afford these increases as they come about. I hope some of you that plan to attend the meeting will ask about the calls for service - what is the increase in CFS over the last five years in Sumter County. What is the assessment in Lake and Marion, and require them to qualify the need for the increase. We will be back in Ohio by the time the meeting takes place, or else we would have been there to ask a few of these questions ourselves.

three
 

All three of them said they would roll it back!

Read other posts, you will learn: the fire assessment that is currently at $126. This has been in place for 14 years and they are butting up to it at $125.


Google, you will learn more.