Pasco County’s Development Review Committee has recommended approval of a proposed ordinance that would hike school impact fees in Pasco County.
The review committee, acting as the county’s local planning agency, found the proposed increase to be consistent with the county’s comprehensive plan.
The new rates would significantly increase the impact fees charged to new residential development to help address the impact that new growth has on schools.
Under the proposed ordinance, the fees could be used to build new schools, acquire school sites or purchase new school buses.
These are the proposed fees:
- Single-family detached residences: $7,540, for homes 1,500 square feet or less; $9,785 for homes between 1,501 square feet and 2,499 square feet; and, $12,028 for homes of 2,500 square feet or more
- Single-family attached: $3,633 per dwelling
- Mobile homes: $5,544 per dwelling
- Multifamily: $5,295 per dwelling
Those compare to these current fees:
- Single-family detached: $4,828 per dwelling (no distinction based on size)
- Single-family attached: $1,740 per dwelling
- Mobile home: $2,843 per dwelling
- Multifamily: $1,855 per dwelling
The fees do not apply to age-restricted communities, where residents are 55 and older.
At the review committee meeting on May 25, Mark C. Ogier, representing the Bay Area Apartment Association, challenged the proposed multifamily rate.
“These proposed impact fees are very troubling to our association and our industry,” Ogier said.
(Fred Bellet)
“No. 1, the proposed increases are huge increases for all categories, but they’re especially grossly disproportionate for multifamily,” Ogier said.
The proposed multifamily increase is a 184 percent increase from the current rate.
At the same time, he said, the amount of student generation from multifamily is “significantly less than single-family,” he said.
Ogier — whose association represents more than 142,000 apartment units in the Tampa Bay area — also questioned the generation rates used by the school district’s consultant, Tischler-Bise, in the impact fee study.
He cited statistics showing that 80 children per 100 households live in single-family, compared with 38 per 100 households in multifamily, Ogier said.
When just children between the ages of 6 and 17 are considered, 35 percent of single-family owners have kids in that age range, while multifamily has just 13 percent, Ogier added.
Ray Gadd, deputy superintendent for Pasco County Schools, said the student generation rates were based on where students actually live.
“Every student is geo-coded to a particular residence,” Gadd said.
“I’m not sure how you beat that,” said Pasco County Administrator Dan Biles. “They live where they live.”
While the Pasco County Commission doesn’t have to adopt the full rate that’s recommended, it cannot simply reduce the multifamily fee, said David Goldstein, chief assistant county attorney.
“There’s no legal way to just reduce multifamily,” Goldstein said, noting to do that would cause single-family to pay a disproportionate amount of the fee.
Review committee member John Walsh asked what would happen if the Tampa Bay Apartment Association wanted to debate if the study was valid or not.
Goldstein responded: “They’d have to come up with their own data showing that what Tischler-Bise (the school district’s consultant) came up with, is inaccurate.”
Gadd said he would provide his underlying data to Ogier, so he could see the information that the district used.
A committee appointed by the Pasco County Commission had recommended the full impact fee increase be adopted, but also said that should be done in stages — with a portion of the impact fee adopted within 90 days of the ordinance adoption and the rest adopted after the Pasco County School Board voted to seek a sales tax increase to address school capacity needs.
That recommendation fell flat with county commissioners who said they didn’t want to force the school board to seek a sales tax increase.
Regardless of what happens with the proposed impact fees, the school district remains in a deep hole regarding funding for new schools.
District officials estimate that even with the full impact fee increase, the district would have a $284 million shortfall for capital construction needed during the next decade.
Pasco commissioners have scheduled two public hearings on the ordinance to amend the school impact fees.
The first public hearing on the school impact fees issue is set for June 20 at 1:30 p.m., in the commission’s board room at the West Pasco Government Center. The second is set for July 11 at 1:30 p.m., on the second floor of the Historic County Courthouse, at 37918 Meridian Ave., in Dade City.
Published May 31, 2017
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