County to mull cutting impact fees further

BROOKSVILLE --

Saying they needed to do something to spark the economy, county commissioners in 2009 voted to roll back residential and commercial impact fees to 2001 levels.

On Tuesday, they will discuss whether to extend the rollback.

Earlier this week, commissioners decided it would be too much of a blow to builders to raise fees while the housing market continues to recover. In fact, Commission Chairman Jim Adkins said the board may want to consider doing away with impact fees completely — at least for a trial period of maybe one year.

Reaction was mixed, with some in the audience saying it would be unfair to those who already paid the fee.

But commissioners agreed the economy has not improved to warrant hiking the fees to their previous levels.

In 2009, commissioners voted to reduce impact fees on a one-year trial basis. The fee went from $9,200 to $4,848. Last year, they voted to continue the reduction until Nov 30.

County Commissioner Jeff Stabins said it would be impractical to "go back."

"The economic activity is so stagnant that it would be counterproductive," Stabins said.

The county collected $3.45 million in impact fee revenue from Dec. 1, 2008, through Sept. 30, 2009; $895,675 from Dec. 1, 2009, through Sept. 30, 2010; and $653,573 from Dec. 1, 2010, through Sept. 30, 2011.

Commissioner Dave Russell said builders are having a tough enough time making ends meet.

"It's not like we're giving a whole heck of a lot away," Russell said. "The activity's not there to make a huge or significant difference in how much money we're taking in."

The board will continue to discuss the matter during a workshop Tuesday.

Even with the fee reductions, the issuance of single-family permits has not risen. In fact they have nosedived every year since 2006, when they reached a record of 2,787.

In 2007, there were 807 permits; In 2008, there were 356; In 2009, there were 149; In 2010, there were 134; through the end of September 2011, there have been 89.

Builder Bob Eaton told commissioners there is a growing trend in Florida to either reduce impact fees or eliminate them completely and he praised them for their actions to date to try to spur construction activity.

The county commission workshop will begin at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Hernando County Government Center, 20 North Main St. in downtown Brooksville.

Also on Tuesday's workshop agenda:

School board members will take part in a discussion about the impacts of the 2010 census on county commission and school redistricting.

After each 10-year census, county commissioners must review district boundaries based on population and adjust the boundaries as necessary to keep the districts proportional in population.

The statutory requirements for school districts are similar in that the district populations must be equal in population as nearly as possible.