WHAT ARE IMPACT FEES AND WHY ARE THEY NECESSARY?

According to the Citrus County web site, specifically the Community Development page, “Impact Fees are an assessment made against all new development that contributes to the burden of public facilities and services. They are a one-time fee designed to ensure that growth pays for itself as much as possible.” What you also have to realize, is that the mention of “all new development” means new construction of a dwelling or commercial building. Not the creation of home sites or the development of raw land in the conventional sense.

“It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them”.
Author: Tiberius Caesar

For the record, the Citrus County Builders Association, the sponsor of this site, is not now, nor has ever been opposed to impact fees as one of the many methods utilized to fund needed county infrastructure. Such infrastructure needs would include new roads, schools, parks, etc. However, the CCBA is vehemently opposed to unreasonable and overly burdensome impact fees that threaten to destroy the dream of home ownership. The CCBA is equally opposed to impact fees that are designed to kill the entrepreneurial spirit of small business owners that wish to create new jobs.

In fact, members of the business community believe in America’s system of free enterprise, private property rights and affordable home ownership. Unfortunately, our county has proposed an impact fee schedule that places unnecessary costs onto the construction of any new home or building. These fees add no value to a new home or building, but simply push them out of reach of the lower income families. 

These increased fees also add to an already problematic property owner’s insurance crisis in this state, by causing premiums to be calculated on the higher cost of a home or building. This assumes of course that you can get the insurance in the first place.

What is missing here is the cause and effect of impact fees. The cause in this case is that apparently our county commissioners believe that infrastructure must only be paid for through impact fees alone. Of course this begs the question as to how we managed years ago without them. Nonetheless, the effect will be that vacant properties will go unsold because no one will be able to afford to build on the site for sale. These prospective buyers will build in neighboring counties that have a smaller, or simply no impact fee at all.

You can now begin to see that we risk losing jobs, and we risk creating a housing market that teachers, emergency and law enforcement personnel, nurses and others will be unable to afford. So please help us stop this insanity. We can’t turn the opinion of our elected officials without your help, and time is running out.

The point to remember is that what the Government gives, it must first take away.
Author: John Caldwell