Glades County is joining a number of Florida counties and cities in re-implementing impact fees to pay for future growth.
Impact fees are a one-time fee charged to developers, new business owners and individual owners of newly built homes to pay for the future impact that new growth will have on things like roads, schools and emergency services. The fees can easily tack at least $10,000 onto the price of a new, average-size home and 10s of thousands more on a new business.
The fees have been around for decades, but a great many in Florida were suspended during the 2008 housing crisis. Rural Florida has been slow to bring them back, with many believing that without the fees it gives rural counties a better chance to attract growth.
But Glades County Commission Chairman Tim Stanley implored fellow commissioners recently to bring back the fees. He said lawmakers in Tallahassee push-back when counties without impact fees ask for money.
"When we go to Tallahassee and we lobby, we need money to get they're always asking me, 'Well, do you have impact fees?' They said, 'No, we don't have impact fees.' 'Well, why are you up here asking me for money when you're not even doing impact fees in your own county.' ''
Chairman Stanley had a difficult time persuading Commissioner Jeffery Patterson.
"I understand that a lot of counties have impact fees, but they do that to deter growth, they don't do that to bring growth to them," Patterson said. " ...We don't have anything for people — we don't have anything to attract them. If we, if we want to be a zero growth county that's the best way to — put an impact fee up, make somebody pay an extra $11,333 to build a house."
In the end, all but Patterson voted to re-implement impact fees to pay for roads, schools, parks and recreation and emergency medical services. The fees should start in the next few months.
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