The Apopka City Council began its discussions on impact fees at a workshop yesterday to provide the basis for charges related to police protection services and for fire and EMS rescue services. Henry Thomas, Vice President of the Public Resources Management Group in Maitland, gave a report based on their study of impact fees and how they could be implemented in Apopka.
An impact fee is a charge that is imposed by a local government on a new or proposed development project to pay for all or a portion of the costs of providing public services to the new development. Impact fees are considered to be a charge on new development to help fund and pay for the construction or needed expansion of offsite capital improvements. The fees are usually implemented to help reduce the economic burden on local jurisdictions that are trying to deal with population growth within the area.
The report said that Apopka could charge $708.00 for fire/EMS services and $747.00 for police services, however its recommendation was to discount the fees to $516.00 for fire/EMS and 519.00 for police... or approximately 70% of the highest rate.
“The reduced fees keeps you competitive, but the study still justifies you going higher in the future,” said Thomas.
Commissioner Kyle Becker asked Thomas if higher fees typically have an effect on economic development.
"Anecdotally, I have found that the highest fees are often in the fastest growing areas," said Thomas.
He referenced Clermont as an example.
"Then if the market bears the full amount...if it's going to pay for growth, it might make sense to go higher," said Becker. I'm not saying that's the way I want to go though."
Commissioner Doug Bankson also agreed on higher impact fees as a way to keep taxes low.
This is one of the smartest ways to move forward," he said. "Because there is a difference between a tax and a fee. A fee is a one-time impact and a tax is a consistent thing. And if we cover this it's not going to have to come out of our general funds... which is going to keep our tax base low. So I lean toward the higher side."
Mayor Joe Kilsheimer returned to a theme of incremental increases.
"I'd like to introduce this concept of being on a glide path instead of jerking people around," he said. "We need to do this incrementally so that people don't feel like we just yanked their chain. People are much more willing to accept things if they are gradual rather than knee-jerk and reactionary."
City Administrator Glenn Irby looked at the current state of some Apopka facilities, and made a case for the higher impact fees.
"This is actually a precarious situation for staff," he said. "We try to sell something we believe is palpable to you as an elected official. And that's the reason the price tag somewhat dropped. But if you look at the facilities now...going forward we're going to outgrow them pretty quickly. The police department is packed-in like sardines. It doesn't look all that great either for a growing city. If this had been done several years ago, we wouldn't be in this situation that we're in now. I personally believe you ought to go full-tilt."
"And we're paying for it one way or another," said Bankson. "We'll have to pay through the general fund."
"The worry with impact fees is if you raise them too high you'll kill the golden goose," said Kilsheimer. "Apopka is an incredibly attractive community. People are going to pay that impact fee because they want to be in Apopka...so again the quality of life part has to be such that people will want to pay the impact fee just to be here. So all of the things we're trying to do in the budget that leads to quality of life consideration...it all goes together. It's all linked together and you can't pull it apart. It has to be one big picture."
At the end of the workshop the City Council agreed to have City Staff prepare an ordinance which would set fees for fire/EMS and police at 80% of the highest rate.
"We can have an ordinance for your first meeting in November," said Irby.
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