Santa Rosa County loses lawsuit over school impact fees; school board reviewing options
Circuit Court Judge Darlene Dickey has ruled in favor of the Home Builders Association of West Florida in invalidating school impact fees that were set to enact in Santa Rosa County about two years ago.
"I think (Dickey) had some concerns about they had not sufficiently identified property prices, and things like that," said Santa Rosa County Attorney Thomas Dannheisser.
In Dickey's decision on the case, she cites several issues with the age and locality of some of the data used to conduct the studies the Board of County Commissioners leaned on to make its decision on imposing the fees.
"The impact fee studies produced by the School Board and relied upon by the Board of County Commissioners in adopting the ordinance fail to use the data local to Santa Rosa County for the costs of construction used in calculating impact fees. Instead, it relies on statewide data from the Florida Department of Education," Dickey’s decision reads.
The start of the lawsuit: Homebuilders sue Santa Rosa County and school board over educational impact fees
Potential for other impact fees: Santa Rosa County takes up $8,000 impact fees again in 2021, could slash them in half
Dickey also points out that some data used in the studies does not comply with the Florida Impact Fee Act.
"In addition, the random and arbitrary $40,000 per acre land cost for constructing new schools throughout the county means the defendants cannot show the fee assessment and expenditures are proportional as required in … the act," Dickey’s decision reads.
Impact fees are one-time fees paid by the purchasers of new homes that go toward infrastructure necessitated by a growing population. In this case, the money would have paid for new schools in Santa Rosa County.
Santa Rosa County Commissioners passed the educational impact fees in January 2020, with District 2 Commissioner Bob Cole casting the lone vote against the measure.
The educational impact fees that passed were $5,000 for single-family houses, $4,000 for mobile homes and $2,750 for multi-family units.
In July 2020, the county was ordered to stop collecting the educational impact fees until the court settled the matter.
David Peaden, executive director of the HBA, said fighting against impact fees is important to protect people on the lower end of the socio-economic ladder.
"We are opposed to impact fees on the basis that it is a regressive tax," Peaden said. "The people on the lower end, who are struggling to get into their first home or buy a home, are penalized."
The News Journal reached out to Santa Rosa County School District Superintendent Karen Barber for comment. The district's public information officer, Tonya Leeks-Shepherd, wrote in a statement that the school board is in the process of reviewing the decision and will not comment on pending litigation, but the item will be addressed at a February school board meeting.
Because the school district cannot create countywide ordinances, it had to go through the BOCC. But Dannheisser said that ultimately, the educational impact fees are a project that has been directed by the school district.
"The county was basically the vehicle for their impact fees. Because the school districts don't have the legal authority to adopt ordinances or to impose an impact fee on their own," Dannheisser said. "They need to have the County Commission adopt it for them."
Cole, the current board chairman, said he personally would not be championing topics like the educational impact fees or other county impact fees.
"I'm not going to be the flag bearer for it, I'll put it that way," Cole said. "But I would certainly look at it if it was brought up by another commissioner or put on the agenda by a commissioner, but I'm not going to be the one that put that in place."
Cole added he plans to give the school board autonomy in potentially deciding to whether to pursue educational impact fees again in the future.
"So, I don't know where the school board's going to go with this. It's going to be totally their decision. I'm not going to try to influence them," Cole said.
Peaden said if the decision is appealed, HBA is ready for an even longer prolonged legal battle.
"We're prepared for anything. We are resolute in this and we're not going to back down. We've come too far to," Peaden said.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa County loses lawsuit over school impact fees
