BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Preparing to revive impact fees for new developments inside the city limits, Starke city commissioners accepted the results of a new study on those fee amounts.
A prior commission placed a mortarium on the collection of impact fees to encourage growth, but, as Mayor Andy Redding pointed out, that doesn’t seem to have helped. In fact, he said when developers expecting to pay impact fees find there are none, they may wonder what is wrong with Starke compared to its neighbors.
Most commissioners expressed support for impact fees, but not at the maximum allowed rates revealed in the study. Restrictions in state statute would prevent some of the fees rising at that rate anyway. Instead, there seemed to be consensus among supporters that raising the former fees by 25% would be adequate for now. It is likely that maximum fees would be adopted to allow the city to move toward those amounts over time.
Impact fees are paid at the time new building projects are permitted and make sure developers are contributing to the cost growth on public infrastructure. As Redding said, without impact fees the city would have to burden all taxpayers with that cost. Existing property owners would only pay an impact fee if there was a significant expansion or development on their property.
The study looked at fees for road improvements, the fire department, parks and public buildings, which were all fees formerly collected. It eliminated fees for the police department, which no longer exists. It proposes adding fees for water and wastewater infrastructure, for which new homes and businesses have previously only been charged a few hundred dollars in connection fees.
To determine the appropriate fees, the consultant firm Infrastructure Consulting and Engineering looked data like the cost of adding roadway or water capacity, vehicle miles traveled, and population. Commercial water and wastewater usage was based on equivalent residential units (e.g. a grocery store that uses as much water and wastewater as seven residences).
Planner Chris Brimo shared the impact fee maximums, which for a new single-family residence was $7,658 plus $6,579 if the new water and wastewater fees were adopted, for a total of $14,237. Based on the former maximum fees, the total was $6,204 but only included $215 as a water connection fee. The increased cost of materials and construction, particularly road construction, also contributes to a higher fee.
For a multifamily residential development, the total per unit would be $12,176. The prior maximum impact fee was $4,910 per unit. Again, that only included a water connection fee per unit.
Square footage is used to calculate the fees for new nonresidential development, so Brimo used a typical fast-food restaurant as an example. At 3,000 square feet, the total would come to $43,755 plus $32,895, which is the equivalent water and wastewater usage for five residences. The total is $76,647. That is significantly more than the prior maximum fee of $29,718, which only included a water connection fee of $315.
For a 30,000 square-foot grocery store, the total maximum fee would come to $279,183, up more than $100,000 from $171,345.
Prior the moratorium, the city only collected a percentage of the amount possible, and a majority agreed that should continue. Accepting the report allows them to start low and raise fees up to the new maximum over time as needed.
The exact amounts to be considered haven’t been determined yet. Commissioners are set to address the issue again at their Dec. 16 meeting.
In July, Bradford County commissioners abandoned the county impact fee moratorium and adopted a new set of fees. The residential fees are $498 per dwelling unit for fire protection, $304 for law enforcement and $258 for emergency medical services, for a total of $1,060 per new dwelling unit. The nonresidential fees are $194 per 1,000 square feet for fire protection, $119 for law enforcement and $101 for emergency medical services, for a total of $414 per 1,000 square feet of new nonresidential construction.
