Dear Editor,
The Santa Rosa County (SRC) Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) held several meetings recently concerning the need for $22 million of additional funds for roadway projects in the next ten years. The sources of funds being considered are a one to six cent increase in gas tax, a 6.4 percent increase in the property tax, or reinstating the SRC transportation impact fee.
The gas tax is a regressive tax which takes a larger percentage of the income of low-income people than high-income people. Since 9.8 percent of the SRC population is below the poverty line and 7.5 percent of SRC seniors over 65 are below the poverty line, this increase in the gas tax should not even be considered. In addition, increasing the property tax places an unfair burden on homeowners, because many of the County’s residents are not homeowners.
Impact fees are used by counties and school districts to pay for the costs of additional infrastructure required as a result of new development. In Florida, 41 out of 67 counties have impact fees. The primary uses of impact fees are for transportation and schools, however, impact fees are also routinely used for fire protection, police protection, emergency services, correctional facilities, parks, libraries, government buildings and drainage. SRC had a transportation impact fee of $2,090 per new home in place until 2009, when the BOCC placed a moratorium on the transportation impact fee which is still in effect. In the three-year period prior to 2009, SRC collected $9.48 million in transportation impact fees, which is an average of $3.2 million per year. By my count, this ill-advised decision by the commissioners cost the county about $19.2 million in the six years of the moratorium. Another reason to choose impact fees now over raising the gas tax or property tax is that impact fees can only be used to supplement current funding for growth infrastructure. This means that if SRC has budget line items for capital development, the County must deduct these funding sources from the total cost of the infrastructure when calculating impact fees.
It should be understood that impact fees also apply to commercial projects, such as large retail buildings. According to the SRC impact fee schedule, a retail building over 200,000 square feet is required to pay an impact fee of $3,901 per 1,000 square feet. For example, a Wal-Mart, 200,001 square feet in size, would pay an estimated $800,000 impact fee.
Research shows that rapid growth promotes impact fee adoptions. Twenty-five years ago, the high growth rate counties in South Florida experienced what SRC is now experiencing, that is, the current high population growth rate requires high infrastructure costs which lead to yearly tax increases. Since rapid growth requires major infrastructure expenditures, the BOCC of SRC has to decide whether the current residents should pay more taxes to support new infrastructure caused by growth, or let the developers pay for it with impact fees. Since I have never seen a low income developer, I suggest the BOCC reinstate the transportation impact fee.
Antonio Apap
Pace
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Santa Rosa County needs impact fees