Questions raised about legislation revising impact fees

Letter to State Rep.Margaret Good from Sarasota citizens regarding a new bill revising how impact fees are defined and administered. One of the bill's sponsors is State Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota. In part it would require counties to create a new bureaucracy to administer, review, and approve such fees on developers. Text of the bill which is still pending.




To: The Honorable Margaret Good;
From: Dan Lobeck, Glenna Blomquist
Date: 02/05/20

Dan Lobeck and I have reviewed this pending legislature (related to HB 637 and SB 1066). Following please find relevant comments:

One problem is that it limits impact fees to “public facilities” defined (by reference to another statute) as “major capital improvements, including transportation, sanitary sewer, solid waste, drainage, potable water, educational, parks and recreational facilities.”

While the bills then add, “and includes any fire and law enforcement facility”, it is not clear if the word “including” in the referenced statute is meant as a limitation or as providing for examples. If the former, Sarasota County’s impact fees for libraries, courts and administration facilities would be rendered illegal. (Case law would need to be researched on statutory construction of the word “including” in the absence of “but not limited to”).

Also potentially problematic is that impact fees would be limited to “infrastructure,” that is the “construction, reconstruction, or improvement of a public facility …” and (again under the above referenced statute) “major capital improvements,” thereby potentially preventing impact fees from being spent on school buses or mass transit, as they are today.

The requirement that impact fees be based on local data gathered within the past 36 months (apparently on a rolling basis) imposes a burden on local governments to gather that date every three years. However, if done right that is not an entirely bad idea, as Sarasota County has long based its transportation impact fees on outdated national data from the last recession (which the County then seeks to apply through a methodology to local conditions) which understates trip length and frequency.

Truly local data, if done correctly, may be more reliable, although that could be subject to manipulation to keep the fees artificially low.

The composition of the local committees is unfairly loaded to those favoring lower impact fees, with most seats reserved for contractors and other business representatives and only one for the general public. (In Sarasota County, this would not much change the makeup of the Public Facilities Financing Advisory Board, which mainly advises on impact fees, as it is typically loaded with development interests and their allies).


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News about the bills from Joe Gruters (Sarasota) and Nick DiCelglie (Pinellas):

Florida House panel OKs bill overhauling local government impact fee levies

The bill would require local governments segregate impact fee revenues into accounts for each improvement category, calculate impact fees with data no older than 36 months, create seven-member committees to review how fees are allocated and exclude costs from fees that don’t meet a revised definition of infrastructure.

Tighter restrictions on impact fees are one step closer to House passage

Some lawmakers expressed reservations about the current language and cautioned they may vote it down if it makes it to the House floor if some concerns aren’t addressed. That includes fears about the fiscal impact to local governments as they are faced with additional administrative burden when levying fees.