The Santa Rosa County Commission has voted to implement an ordinance to impose impact fees on new construction to support transportation and infrastructure improvement projects. The transportation impact fee ordinance was previously attached to passage of an additional half-penny sales tax, which voters rejected in November.
The unanimous approval Monday opened a 90-day notice period before the ordinance can officially go into effect in May.
With an affirmative vote expected, a public hearing on the issue drew little opposition, with just two people signed up to speak.
“Of course, we’re against impact fees. I know it’s being passed, but we’re against that,” said Alton Lister, a local homebuilder and senior board member of the Florida Home Builders Association, before asking implementation to be delayed until later this year. “We’re here for affordable housing and anytime you put a fee on it, it makes it worse.”
According to Lister, data from the National Association of Home Builders shows 24% of the cost of a new home is government-regulated fees. Lister asked for implementation of the impact fees to be delayed until later this year, in part, to give home builders more time to get a handle on new tariffs on goods from Canada. Similar actions during President Trump’s first administration caused the cost of Canadian lumber to skyrocket.
“We’re strongly anticipating and some of us builders have already ordered truckloads of studs and stockpiled them,” said Lister. “Because if this happens, we have houses bid out, there’s no way we can afford to double our lumber costs.”
Jennifer Mancini, representing the Home Builders Association of West Florida, was the only other person to speak in opposition.
“Of course, everybody knows where I stand on this; I stand firmly on impact fees,” declared Board Chairman Kerry Smith. “These are fair impact fees. We’re always going to have something that’s gonna be a cost, that’s going to be...everything’s pushed to the consumer. We understand that. But we have to have fair impact fees in place.”
The impact fees assessed for construction of a single-family home will be $1,636. Fees for multi-family residences will range from $789 per unit for high-rise buildings to $1,171 for low-rise structures. Retail commercial development will be charged $2,774 per 1,000 square feet, office buildings $1,430 per 1,000 square feet, and industrial property $677 per 1,000 square feet.
Combined, the impact fees are expected to generate approximately $26 million over 10 years.
Smith cautioned, however, that the funds collected won’t pay for all of the county’s infrastructure needs or even catch up to current development.
“We got a lot of people that think this is a magic bullet; this is going to cure all of our woes. It’s not,” he said. “It’s a drop in the bucket. It’s literally a drop in the bucket, but it’s a good drop.”
Smith and District 5 Commissioner Colten Wright argued the county is now suffering the repercussions of decisions by former boards to reverse course on a previous impact fee.
“I think suspending the impact fee in 2009, as a well-intentioned effort to help people that were suffering due to an economic downturn, and then suspending it in 2010 and 2011, when they finally sunset, was probably one of the worst financial decisions that previous boards had made,” stated Wright.
Maintaining that Santa Rosa remains one of the lowest taxed counties in Florida and that housing prices are higher in other parts of the state, the District 5 commissioner pointed out that there’s never going to be a “perfect” or “right” time to implement such fees. But he thinks the trade-off will be worth it.
“In my opinion, my humble opinion, this increase is very minimal and the juice is worth the squeeze,” he stated. “The payback to the community is better and we’re getting a better return on that investment.”
The remaining three board members were also on board with imposing impact fees.
“I am also for impact fees, reasonable impact fees,” added Commissioner Bobby Burkett, who used the issue to help him defeat two-term Commissioner Sam Parker for the District 1 seat in November. “We kicked this can down the road for infrastructure for 35-40 years. We cannot keep kicking it down the road. We have got to take a stand.”
In response to some residents who’ve complained that impact fees will keep their kids from buying a house, Burkett suggested the added cost over a 30-year mortgage should not be prohibitive.
“If $3 or $4 a month is going to stop you from buying a house, you’re trying to buy too much house,” he concluded. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to be point blank.”
Also weighing in, Commissioner Ray Eddington said, “If I’d buy me a new house today, I wouldn’t have a problem with it; this is where I want to live.”
Commissioner Rhett Rowell also expressed support.
“I’m for it and ready to vote,” Rowell proclaimed.
After about 30 minutes of discussion during the public hearing, Chairman Smith made the motion to pass the impact fees. All voted in favor.
“It’s unanimous,” Smith proclaimed. “We now have impact fees.”
The collection of impact fees will begin May 5.
