Santa Rosa County to consider assessing impact fees to benefit roads, parks and police

A long anticipated discussion concerning the implementation of impact fees to help Santa Rosa County cover the costs of roads, parks and law enforcement facilities is likely to get underway Monday now that an update of a 2020 study of the issue has been completed.

District 1 County Commissioner Kerry Smith, who has made no secret of the fact that he favors impact fees, said he intends to bring up the issue when the governing board meets Monday as a committee of the whole.

Impact fees assessed for home construction are typically passed on to the home buyer.

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Smith said the county needed to have a study in hand before starting the debate on impact fees to give commissioners a guide that insures any path toward implementation is correctly, and legally, taken.

The County Commission requested an updated study on Jan. 23 and received the finished product Monday, according to county spokeswoman Brittany Ellers.

The updated study county commissioners will be using as a guide was produced by Duncan Associates of Texas. A company website states Duncan Associates has "prepared impact fee studies for jurisdictions from coast to coast."

"Our familiarity with the available cafeteria plan of legal methodologies enables us to craft impact fee systems that are tailored to each local government," the website said.

The study group did not neglect to mention Santa Rosa County's jaded history with impact fees.

Duncan Associates noted that in late 2005 county officials had adopted impact fees with which to build roads, but suspended them in early 2009 at around the time the country fell into what became known as the Great Recession.

"The suspension on the collection of the road fees continued until the ordinance was repealed in 2015," the study said. "The county has never assessed impact fees for parks and law enforcement facilities."

It also went into some detail about the fate of the effort to collect impact fees of $5,000 per family unit to pay for educational facilities.

Passed in January of 2020, the educational facilities fees were slated to be enacted that May, but had not brought in any funds as of June the same year, according to reporting by the Pensacola News Journal.

Following passage of the educational facilities fees in January of 2020, the county was sued by the Homebuilders Association of West Florida.

HBA stated in court filings that it had found flaws in the way the school district's impact fee consultant calculated the amount of fees and the number of students impacted by new construction.

The agency claimed the county's ordinance establishing the fees had unlawfully delegated county authority to the school board, and termed the fees "invalid, unconstitutional and illegal."

Circuit Court Judge Darlene Dickey in July of 2020 issued a temporary injunction against the collection of the educational facility fees, siding with the HBA and finding the school district's impact fee study sloppy and ill-advised. In January of 2022 she ordered the fees done away with.

“The Santa Rosa School District has not geographically identified new growth, and it seems to have generalized the fact that Santa Rosa County is growing,” Dickey wrote in issuing the injunction. “The School Board did not do ‘heat-mapping’ to justify the need for a school impact fee in the parts of the county experiencing the exponential growth that was described to the Board of County Commissioners.”

The school district is at present working to update its educational facilities impact fee study, the county's updated study said.

"As a practical matter, the county does not currently assess any impact fees."

Alton Lister, government affairs chairman for the Homebuilders Association of West Florida, issued a statement Friday in reaction to the county's plan to discuss implementing impact fees.

"We understand the importance of having good roads, quality parks and supporting law enforcement," he said. "At the same time we also see the critical need for affordable housing. We are hopeful there are alternative ways to accomplish both."

More: With new proposed impact fee, Santa Rosa homebuyers could face $8,000 in total fees

In its updated report, Duncan Associates tabulated fee estimates for Santa Rosa County that would be lower than all but four of the 31 counties in Florida that charge impact fees. For single family home construction the fees would range from $1,911 for a residence of less than 2,000 square feet up to $2,254 for homes of 3,000 square feet or larger.

A retail or commercial developer would be charged starting at $2,919 for a 1,000-square-foot building.

In contrast, the 2020 impact fee study, also done by Duncan Associates, called for fees of $3,004 for single-family homes and $1,920 for mobile homes. With retail development fees of $3,338 per 1,000 square feet.

The updated study calculated separate fees for multi-family and mobile homes, RV parks, industrial space, warehouses, mini-warehouses and public/institutional facilities.

The bulk of each impact fee charged would, under the Duncan Associates plan, go toward road construction. Lesser amounts would be set aside for parks and law enforcement facilities.

For the less than 2,000-square-foot home: $1,586 would go toward roads, $217 for parks and $134 for law enforcement. With the 3,000 square-foot or larger home: $1,846 would go for roads, $250 for parks and $158 toward law enforcement.

The study called for fees to be assessed only in the unincorporated area, although the road fee iscalculated county-wide and could also be assessed on new development within the municipalities byinterlocal agreement.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa may discuss impact fees on new construction for infrastructure