ANALYSIS:
What is an impact fee:
Impact fees are a one-time payments used to construct system improvements needed to accommodate new developments. An impact fee represents a new developments proportionate share of an infrastructure need. Impact fees do have limitations and should not be regarded as the total solution for funding infrastructure. Rather, they are one component of a comprehensive portfolio to ensure provision of adequate public facilities needed to serve new development. In contrast to general taxes, impact fees may not be used for operations, maintenance, replacement of infrastructure or correcting existing deficiencies.
The Law:
Impact fees are regulated by State and local government. The State of Florida passed the Growth Management Act of 1985 that required all local governments in Florida to adopt Comprehensive Plans to guide future development. The Act mandated that adequate public facilities must be provided “concurrent” with the impacts of new development. State mandated “concurrency” was adopted to ensure the health, safety and general welfare of the public; hence impact fees related to these categories are currently in place. Under Florida Law, the impact fees must require a reasonable connection between the need for additional infrastructure/capital expenditure and the growth in services units generated by new developments that generated the fee. The government must show the connection between the expenditure of the funds and benefit accruing to the area the fees related too. Government entities typically evaluate their current fees to ensure the infrastructure needed to meet the demands created by the growth of new development. The need for these infrastructures are driven by residential and nonresidential developments; for instance as new employees and residents are added as a result of a new development the City will still need to provide the same level of service as they did before the development to the new growth.
As mentioned above, under the Florida Statute, the City is required to maintain the same level of service due to growth in health, safety, and the general welfare of the public; as a result, impact fees are usually charged for police, fire, municipal, parks & recreation, mobility and sanitary sewer. Residential and Nonresidential development creates growth in population, employees, and visitors. A sample of the categories and the basis of calculations are provided below:
| Type of Structure |
Example |
Service and Demand Units used to Calculate |
| Police |
Police building/ Site Expansion |
Population, inbound traffic, # of trips to new development |
| Fire |
Fire Stations/Site Expansion |
Population, Jobs, Visitors |
| Municipal |
Administrative Building/ Land |
Population, Jobs, Visitors |
| Park & Recreation |
Active/Passive Parks, Recreation Buildings/Land |
Population, Jobs, Visitors |
| Mobility |
Multimodal Roadways and Streetscape improvements |
Population, Jobs, Visitors |
| Sanitary Sewer |
Collection System, Sewer Plants |
Wastewater Flow |
Existing Fees:
Based on discussions with the different City departments, Planning, Building, Transportation, Parks & Recreation and Public Works the following impact fees and corresponding City Municode that authorizes the impact fees for new/expanding developments are provided below:
- Transportation1 – Section 122-1 through 10
- Parks & Recreation – Section 122-1 through 10
- Parking Fee in lieu of providing parking – Section 130-131
- Water/Sewer Impact Fees – Section 110-167 to 169
1 The City has done a Mobility Impact Fee study to replace its existing Transportation Impact Fee. According to Planning the study is almost completed and a mobility fee will be recommended to the City Commission for approval.
No impact fees are currently being charged for Police or Fire.
Potential Comparative Cities:
The City is considering the following cities for evaluating the impact fees being charged:
- Coral Gables
- City of Miami
- Miami Lakes
- Tampa
- Sarasota
- Ft Lauderdale
- Surfside
- Bal Harbour
- Sunny Isles
- Aventura
- Orlando
- Hollywood
- Key West
- Clearwater
- Daytona Beach
- St Petersburg
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