FR-25-1620

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2 appearances between Apr 17, 2025 and Apr 22, 2025, at 2 boards.

No final outcomeThe minutes show no disposition for any appearance of this case. That is a gap in the record, not a decision.

Official title

(To Be Heard Before P51) Second Workshop Dedicated to the Extraordinary Circumstances Necessitating the Need for the Fire Rescue Fire Combat and Rescue Service Impact Fee Increase to Exceed the Phase-In Limitations in Sections 163.31801(6)(b), (c), and (d), Florida Statutes

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1Apr 17, 2025
Planning CommissionPC9Consent agendaNo disposition in the minutes
~~(To Be Heard Before P51) Second~~ First Workshop Dedicated to the … and (d), Florida Statutes
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14m
Unidentified speakerVoice A
everybody with you. Mr. Chair, Board Members, Ryan Gwynn, uh Fire Chief Pasco County Fire Rescue. Just want to tee this um workshop up uh real quick for 30 seconds before I let the fire marshal take over. But first of all, thank you for your time. Uh we've been working on this for about two years, trying to come to a conclusion. Uh we've uh reached out to county staff, they advised us to possibly go out and reach a third party uh consultant which we did and uh I think that we're gonna show that we have some accinuating circumstances necessitating
a need from you guys. So um at that note I again would like to say thank you and then I'll let the fire marshal take over. All right.
Unidentified speakerVoice B
Thank you.
Thank you, Chief. Good afternoon, Planning Commission, Chairman, Councillor Justin From Fire Marshal of Pasco County. uh presenting on the first workshop to the extraordinary circumstances Necessitating our need for fire rescue combat and rescue service impact fee to exceed the phase in statutory limitations.
Unidentified speakerVoice C
Mm.
Unidentified speakerVoice B
Um Statutorily bound uh by a fifty percent increase. The uh We're we're asking that we exceed that phase of limitation under the extraordinary circumstances of Uh population growth, construction costs increases, and that's below the market on uh NFPA 1710 standards for staffing and responses. Um under the phasing limitations, it allows the government to demonstrate the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need to exceed these phasing
limitations, holding at least two publicly noticed workshops dedicated to them. This being the first and the second will be heard Tuesday at the Board of County Commissioners. Uh because we are proposing that increase Uh exceed the phase limitations. Uh Two workshops will be required.
The uh unprecedented development in Pasco County, more people, increasing costs for service and demands. Uh in the twenty-three years that Chief McGwin and I have been with the organization, uh by leaps and bounds, we've elevated our service delivery to the citizens and customers. uh and guests of Pasco County. Uh a lot of efforts with board support and county administration support and direction. We've raised our services to meet the needs of the community to be recently outgrown with population. Uh
since our current impact fee were adopted uh in December of twenty three and into twenty four, a forty three point two percent increase in population Compared to a thirteen four point four percent nationwide increase. Yeah. Since the 2003 adoption of the current impact fees, construction cost indexing has increased 143%. Uh land values increased approximately a hundred and sixty percent. And we still remain well below the threshold of the NFPA
17 standard uh 1710 standard of firefighters per 1,000 population. as well as fire station delivery areas. Uh it's necessary to update project costs, therefore the impact fee is to ensure the cost to deliver. New facilities need to maintain fire rescue level of service and the county are sufficiently covered in this fee structure.
Connected City
What is that standard for firefighters per thousand?
Unidentified speakerVoice B
The uh I have a slide that represents that in just a moment, sir. Jumping ahead.
Yeah, again affirming the population growth and the index that our consultant will also speak to. Uh we're up forty three point two percent. Since uh these impact fee's in two thousand four.
And in this graph it parallels and there's a direct correlation to our increased Service delivery and calls for service, the demand on our units parallels the population growth represented by new residential home permits. This dates back uh to January of twenty seventeen. to the end of the calendar year of twenty three. Uh twenty-four is when we completed the study. I I I will say that we surpassed that in the calendar
year of twenty twenty four. uh surpassing well over one hundred thousand calls for service.
Uh construction costs index increase of one hundred and forty three percent. You all in the Planning Commission all know the costs that Has gone up in both construction costs, building, design, as well as land acquisition.
Uh following the the uh Stantec study. Uh I'm sorry, this is our our current fee structure on uh fire combat and rescue service, uh residential combined for unincorporated peep residents is uh four hundred twenty dollars and thirty nine cents and our non-res sits at five forty eight seventy seven per one thousand square feet.
Looking at that and when we started this venture Uh we were looking at our capital revenues and how it was not sustainable to our capital improvement plans to parallel the growth and the demands on our services. Um when we looked at this originally, we were nearly thirty-five months. Of revenue, uh capital revenue collection before we meet a threshold of approximately ten million dollars to fund a new service delivery area. Uh with the proposal and they ask that we have reducing
that down to approximately 15 months of acquisition to capture a $10 million capital revenue line for a new service delivery area. Um in addition to increasing uh both Uh fire combat and rescue service impact fee asking to remove the cap at fifty thousand square foot in non-res. Okay. After we completed that study and that internal audit of where we were at and how it wasn't sustainable
to our capital improvement plan and our growth to parallel the inundation of population putting on our calls for service, we presented that to Mr. Carbala and County Administrator who supported us uh moving forward with a impact fee study and stand tech consulting was retained. So at this time I would like Peter Napoli Uh he was our program manager to come speak on his portion of the study.
Unidentified speakerVoice D
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Planning Commissioners. Uh and thank you for the introduction, Fire Marshal Frum. Uh I've got a few slides here summarizing the results of the impact fee study that we conducted for the county, um, as well as the demonstrated need study that's required as part of the state statutes to exceed the limitations.
And I I might go through these kind of quick if you want me to go back at the end to any of these slides and dive a little deeper, but I'm gonna just try to give you a high-level overview and not get too into the weeds. Um this background slide here, I'm pretty sure you guys are all very familiar with how impact feees work and what they're used for, so I'll skip over this. The existing fees you already saw, Mr. Frum showed that table between and your existing fees are currently split between fire combat and rescue service. And then there
is that cap of the 50,000 square feet for non-residential, which is very unusual in my experience around the state. You don't typically see caps on the non-residential impact fees that are that are assessed. And uh I'm sure the uh the the fire department could speak to how there is excess of of of demand that they place on on services beyond that 50,000 square foot mark.
I'm sure you're familiar with House Bill 337, which uh put these limitations into place on impact fee increases. Um this was put into place in 2021 and before then you didn't have to go through the extraordinary circumstances and demonstrate a need to exceed that 50% threshold, but now you do, so this is uh this is part of that. Um I can tell you that I've I've helped uh numerous counties uh around the state with this uh you know procedure. Uh most recently Hernando
and uh citrus will be coming up soon.
These are the same charts that Mr. Frum showed with the excessive population growth and cost inflation in the in the region that are substantial use cases for the extraordinary circumstances. Those are the two most popular extraordinary circumstances that I see identified around the state when counties go through this process. Another is operational, and he spoke to operational, the operational needs from a staffing standpoint.
And then we kind of go into the methodology here. Some of these slides kind of changed around a little bit once we put them in the Pasco County format. But the methodology that we use to recalculate the fees is what we call the hybrid approach. So this is a blend of existing costs and future costs. Existing capacity and future capacity. So we use the fixed asset data from the county's records to support the existing cost of your fire department facilities. And then we use the
capital improvement plan for the future cost of future facilities that are planned and as a result of growth.
Uh the This one kinda comes up a little weird. Uh the capacity is measured in what we call functional population, which is a way of Measuring the impact or demand for certain services, and this is used for most of the general government services, public safety, parks and rec. Essentially, it's a way of estimating the amount of people that are added to the capacity of the county from a certain type of development. So on the non-residential side, it's the amount of people occupying
per thousand square feet of space. Which includes employees, visitors, et cetera. On the residential side, it's the people living in the dwelling unit or apartment unit, et cetera. These are the functional populations measured for the county, and they form the basis for the proportional nexus between residential and non residential fees. These are the capital improvements that we identified. There are several stations, major apparatus acquisitions. And then there's also a
portion of a future training center and uh operations center that we we d discounted since uh a portion of the buildings uh serving existing residents as well. It's not wholly necessary due to growth. This is the rescue side. This is uh the the calculations once we take the cost basis, the existing cost plus future costs identified for fire combat and rescue service divided amongst the existing units served, measured
in equivalent dwelling units, which is the capacity for both of those. These are the fees that we calculate. And your fees are actually separated out into two buckets between land and then facilities and equipment. So you could see in the top section there, land and facilities equipment would total $416 for the fire combat fee per residential dwelling unit. On the non-residential side, 362
per thousand square feet. That's a 67% increase on the residential side and a 12% increase on the non-residential side. And it's important to point out that the cap is removed in this situation from that non-residential. So the revenue would most likely be affected higher than that 12% increase. On the rescue services side, the fees shown there highlighted in the dark blue, the updated fees 29 for land, 229
to make it 258 per residential dwelling unit. That's a 50% increase. And then the non-residential actually stayed. Flat per thousand square feet. But again, the not the uh the cap for the uh total square footage uh charged is removed.
And again, that 50% increase technically is below the 50% threshold that the state allows. However, they wouldn't allow you to adopt it all at once without going through this process. You'd have to phase it in over a four-year period, and that would affect revenue collection.
So this last graph here just sum summarizes the results of the updated fees. Uh together, the fire and rescue account for a 60% increase when combined. And then on the non-residential side, the combined increase is seven percent. Uh this is a survey that w we performed this back in you know early twenty twenty four, so it's probably changed since then. There's a lot of increases to impact fee around the state right now. The green arrow shows
where you're at currently and where you'd be moving to in relation to the total impact fees that the county charges. This is a kind of a minor increase, you know, when you factor in schools, transportation, mobility, et cetera. So you'd stay in the same place in the survey and you're a little bit above the average.
And then there were a few operational slides that I don't know if you wanted to speak to, Mr. Frum, but I'll just I could just skip through these, but um that's Basically the end of my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Connected City
When was the last time there was a fee or a um this was reevaluated? When was the last time there was an increase in impact fee for fire rescue? 2003.
GirardiVice Chair
There actually never was an that was the initial adoption. That was the initial
Unidentified speakerVoice D
adoption, so there hasn't been an update. That's never been increased since then. And we recommend in looking at these every five years.
Molly Fisher
Mm-hmm.
GreyChair
Not any questions?
2Apr 22, 2025
Board of County CommissionersR44Regular businessNo disposition in the minutes
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26m
StarkeyChair
All right, um we need to take up R forty four, correct? That's correct. Correct.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Good afternoon, Commissioner. Ryan Gwen, Pasco County Fire Chief. Uh R 44 FR251620 is a second workshop dedicated to the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need for the fire rescue, fire combat, and fire rescue rescue service impact fee to exceed the phasing limitations of sections 163.318016BC and D of the Florida statutes. Substatutes limits impact fee increases to 50%
of current impact fee rate and requires impact fee increases up to this amount to be limited in in a two or four-year incrementation. uh phasing limitations, but it also allows for local government to exceed the phasing limitations if the local government demonstrates the extraordinary circumstances necessitating this need. um we can exceed that phase in limits. So because uh Well fire rescue is proposing a fire combat and rescue service impact fee increase that will exceed the phasing limitations. We um we have to do these workshops and
this is the second wand. So extraordinary circumstances include um unprecedented development in Pasco County, which obviously more people increases our call volume. Population growth since 2004 has increased in Pasco County 43.2% compared to 13.4% of the national average. Uh the current impact fee was adopted in two thousand and three and has remained unchanged since then. Since then, fire rescue has witnessed 150% increase in construction costs over recent years. The CCI
indexing increasing as well for 143% from 2002 to 2022. Uh land values have uh increased exponentially uh to approximately $65,000 an acre on property that we're seeking and usable. Um to an average of 160% increase since 2002. Uh and you know using NFPA 1710 as our guiding light, we're also behind fire stations. According to their calculations, four, according to our calculations, five, because NFPA doesn't take into effect the geographical layout of the county.
So uh because of these extra extraordinary circumstances, um Uh it's necessary to update update project costs and therefore the impact fee and ensure that uh we can deliver the new um services that are needed. And to show you we have a graph here um which just Uh shows the the growth in Pasco County, the dotted line as Pasco County uh as uh a representation to our surrounding areas as well as the national average. If I'm going too
fast, please stop me, but I know we're We're trying to hurry up. Um sorry about that. This next graph shows uh our call volume, which is the blue line on top, how it correlates directly to the increase in new impact uh or new home permits.
The next slide shows the C CI uh increase um especially around between the two thousand and two thousand twenty area out uh production or construction costs of climbed significantly. So our existing fire fees are right at about $420 a residential unit and about $548 for a non-residential unit. At that current rate. Next slide, please. Sorry, sorry, you gotta keep up with me, sorry. At that current rate, um we're projected to raise about ten million dollars worth of capital revenue
about um roughly about every four years. If you look up at the proposed fee area, we can shorten that up to about two and a half to three years and then also um to an even um quicker gap. uh if we remove the fifty thousand square foot commercial cap, which is denoted by the orange line. And then now I'd like to bring up um a representative from Stantec, our third party representative that we use to kind of collect this data and he can go over some of the methodology on how we came up with this.
Unidentified speakerVoice D
P Thanks, Chief. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Uh I have a brief presentation summarizing the results of our impact fee study. Um,
I'm sorry. Peter Napley with Santec Consulting based in Tampa, Florida. Uh work with counties and cities across the state on impact fee studies and all Also these extraordinary circumstances workshops, I'm very familiar with and have conducted some in the local area recently.
StarkeyChair
What a
Unidentified speakerVoice D
great picture. Okay.
StarkeyChair
Isn't that a good picture? Mm-hmm.
Unidentified speakerVoice D
So um To start out, and I'm sure you are all very aware of what impact fees are, but we do like to give a brief overview of impact fees. are used for capital costs only to fund expansion-related capital costs. That's an important distinction there. So capital facilities that are necessitated by growth. Without impact fees. Impact fees are totally a policy decision. So you can choose to not have them, or have them, or choose to have them at a lower cost recovery level. Without
the use of impact fees, the necessary facilities may not be constructed to keep up with growth, or they may be funded from other sources such as taxpayer revenues.
A little background, the chief had already reviewed with you guys the current fee combined between fire and rescue service is $420 per dwelling unit. On the non-residential side, it is per thousand square feet, and currently there is a cap that exists in the county's ordinance that caps Non-residential development at 50,000 square feet. That's an unusual cap in my experience. I haven't seen that around the state before. So part of our suggestions and recommendations here
today is to remove that cap and assess all of the square footage of non-residential development with impact fees.
So the reason for the extraordinary circumstances workshop and I believe uh you have as a county gone through this recently, so I don't need to go into too much detail. Um and also the chief already highlighted the demonstrated need both from high population growth, uh construction cost increases. Another one is the duration of time since the last uh this impact fee has been updated. So it's been over 20 years since this impact fee has been looked at. That's often used as a justification for exceeding the
limitations.
StarkeyChair
Can I ask you a question on that top chart?
Unidentified speakerVoice D
Yes.
StarkeyChair
Did you put Pasco County in white on a white paper?
Unidentified speakerVoice D
Oh so what happened was you saw it better on Chief's graph, but it got reformatted because we went into Pasco County's like slide template and the colors changed and kind of looks odd, but I can go back to the Chiefs.
It was supposed to be orange and then it changed when they reformatted it by putting in a Pasco slide deck. Sorry about that. The methodology that we use, and this is another thing that kind of you can see that hybrid method at the bottom there is supposed to be a different color and easier to see. We use the hybrid methodology, which is a mixture of existing costs. So we take your fixed assets for the fire rescue department, and then we also include the capital improvements. So it's existing and future. Costs,
existing capacity in the county, and future capacity added with the capital improvements that are planned.
And this just, you know, details that out more. The Any assets that were funded by grant funds donated, they're excluded from the cost basis. Any dedicated funding sources that are used to fund assets, such as the SurTax or GEO bonds, those are also excluded from the cost basis. That's a kind of a credit that is standard process and impact fee calculations.
This one is coming up a little weird too. So the capacity is measured in what we call functional population. There's a requirement by the state that there is a uh a logical nexus that's used between residential and non-residential to create these fees. Um it can't just kind of be arbitrary. Chosen. So functional population measures the func the population impact both on the residential and the non-residential side. So residential is easy because that's you know the occupants of a residential household or multifamily unit.
On the non-residential side, it's visitors, a combination of visitors, employees, and that's used to create a uh a logic a proportional relationship between the fees. And this is the function of population we calculated in the county.
These are the fire capital improvement costs that we included in the calculation. So there are some fire stations included, and there is also a big training center and operations center out in the future that are included to a certain extent. We're including a percentage of it because a percentage of the cost is going Going to also serve existing residents. So we're only using the growth portion of that cost of the ops center and the training center, but we're using the complete cost for the other stations.
And the rescue portion of those capital projects as well. So this kind of summarizes the calculation at a high level. The total costs that are included for fire combat, $153 million, the total costs included for rescue, 99.5. That's divided amongst the existing capacity, the future capacity served by these assets to get the resulting fees. This is the fee schedule, the updated fee schedule for fire combat. The land and facilities
and equipment are separate in the fee schedule because those monies are held separately. So there's a fee for land of $36 per unit. Then there's the fee for facilities and equipment of $380 to total $416 per unit for fire combat for residential. That's an increase of 67%, so above and beyond the 50% threshold set by the state. And then on the non-residential side, the increase totals to twelve percent.
On the rescue side, the increase totals to about fifty percent for the residential and uh it's held flat for non-residential, which may seem a little odd. Um it's just the result of the formula that we follow. Uh we We're not too familiar with how the fees were calculated back in 2003, but a big part of it I think may have been that 50,000 square foot cap that was put on the fees back then, and that may be why the fee isn't increasing, but the county could experience increased revenues from
removing that cap on the rescue side. We're on both sides, fire and rescue.
So the total impact fees are shown here, and that formatting is a little weird, so it's hard to see the uh the total fee there. Six hundred and seventy-four dollars for residential combined between fire and uh rescue, and that's a total of a sixty percent increase over the existing fees. This is a chart of all of the impact fees in the county's impact fee schedule as compared to some other regional counties. Since this fee that both the fire and the
EMS are a smaller portion of the overall impact fee that the county charges, it doesn't substantially move you in placement in the survey. The larger fees that are really gonna motivate that are the school's impact fee, the transportation impact fee, part of the easy. Parks and Rec, et cetera. So you stay in the same place in in terms uh in in relation to your neighbors.
And then this is some operational data, but the chief already covered this in the beginning that they're seeing the increase in um i in in calls and incidents re regarding growth and new development in the county.
And with that, this is the second of the extraordinary workshops that are necessary for exceeding these limitations. Other than that, it requires two-thirds approval, and then notice is there's a statutory requirement of noticing 90 days before you start collecting the new fee levels if you so choose to go with the updated results. And that's the end of my presentation.
StarkeyChair
Okay, board members, do you have any quest questions? Commissioner Mariano?
MarianoVice Chair
Just a comment. Um you know I think it's sad that we didn't do this since two thousand three. Um Could have been a lot less stress on budgets go go going behind us. Uh one thing I'd like to see us do and and I'm supportive to do these I'm okay with even moving the cap, but I would like to see us if we've got something that's economic development related tourist evolution related that they have an opportunity to actually Ask us for a reimbursement through Some other source of need if if with possible.
StarkeyChair
Uh do you guys have any comments? I have one. Oh so I I would say um yeah this is way overdue. Um but I do have a little hesitation in an unlimited Um unlimited on the commercial and I asked the question and maybe someone can tell me 'cause I don't know how big. How big is that Target building? How big is that Amazon Distribution Center?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
A million, a million.
StarkeyChair
A million square feet.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
The targeted yes ma'am.
StarkeyChair
Yeah, so what would their fire impact fee be?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
I'd have to do the calculations again, but roughly about eight hundred thousand dollars.
StarkeyChair
Yeah, so I'm I have a little concern of going you know, I I we I don't know why we had that cap. Maybe it was to get it through. I don't know. We had very little commercial then. Um So we definitely have to change that. But I wonder if we wanna you know, have something graduated when you get to Two different Two big sizes. I I don't know what the right number is, but I thought maybe someone else might bring it up here. How big the target's one million square feet? Yes, ma'am. I don't even that's just I don't that's a wine blow right
there. Um so you know maybe at five hundred thousand.
Huh?
Oakley
The target building's not even in service. I know.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
But um We did some slight comparisons just for um reference. So like a Walmart distribution center like the one represented in Zephyrhills. Um their current impact fee they paid were twenty six thousand. This proposal would bring 'em up to about twenty eight thousand. Um such as
StarkeyChair
it would only go up to twenty how many square feet is that?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Just over fifty thousand. And that's a Walmart distribution center.
StarkeyChair
The distribution center's only fifty
Unidentified speakerVoice A
thousand? Super center, sorry, Walmart Super Center.
StarkeyChair
Oh, okay, not a distribution center. See, I just wonder if we should lower it when we get to a distribution center a little bit. Yes, Commissioner Mariano?
MarianoVice Chair
Maybe just make the maybe make the number 100,000.
StarkeyChair
Yeah, or two hundred and fifty thousand or something.
Yeager
But what are the other counties doing what are the other counties doing
Unidentified speakerVoice A
the other counties don't have caps. It's uh as the
Yeager
So if they're doing it in
Unidentified speakerVoice A
other countries. You
know,
kinda unprecedented unfortunate and and um for another example, a recent hospital that just opened up in the Wesley Chapel area, they paid twenty seven thousand dollars in impact fee. Without the commercial cap there's would have been a hundred and seventy nine thousand.
StarkeyChair
And and how many square feet was it, Dana?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
I'd I'd have to do the math on that exactly. But is that maker? Yes, ma'am.
StarkeyChair
I just I think it's uh really sad that we didn't capture those better. But when you have a building that's, you know, five hundred thousand square feet, I I just wonder if we should just go ahead and cap it up five hundred thousand square feet or something. We'll we'll hardly catch an there won't be very many of 'em, but it seems that seems fair. Fairer. I Well
Yeager
The only reason I'm gonna disagree is because other counties already do it. They're paying it in other counties. We're the fastest growing county right now. So I mean, why should we put any more s stress on our budget when we I I think we should do it?
StarkeyChair
And uh Polk County has no caps on because they have a lot of distribution centers. I think you have to do that. I'm asking the the consultant. Sorry.
Unidentified speakerVoice D
I'm sorry, I can't say for certain whether or not they do. I uh Polk County is specifically. I work with Citrus and Hernando. They don't they don't have caps on on their non-residential square footage. And then I've worked for numerous other cities and counties, but uh I haven't worked with Bulk, so I can't say for certain.
StarkeyChair
And uh Fire Chief, are you aware of Polk County as a cap? Yes,
Unidentified speakerVoice A
ma'am. We w we've the fire marshal's done the research on Polk County does not have a square footage cap.
Unidentified speakerVoice E
Okay. And I'll ask the consultant, you you don't see a drop in service level for the for the capital things at the impact fee at a certain point. In Square footage.
Unidentified speakerVoice D
No, that argument's never really been made because if you usually if you ask the fire rescue department, they say the larger the building, the scale of their response is proportionate to the size. So their impact on the county's service service system is proportional. So that that's why I think there's not typically a cap. I think Jack Mariano.
StarkeyChair
Commissioner Weightman.
MarianoVice Chair
So so back to I mean, you know, l at that at that Moffat groundbreaking today hearing Um Madam Chair s say the words that we're a bedroom community. As hard as we work to create jobs and jobs and jobs, and that's still
Um I just don't want to do anything that's gonna w discourage anything that's gonna create jobs, whether it be the big distribution that maybe they don't come right away, they're gonna go somewhere else because it's more affordable. uh whether it be any type of job creating thing coming in, I don't want Oli pushing the pushing that on them. If there's a way to reimburse them, I'd love to have that discussion now. to like if there's a way to use Penny for Pasco money or whatever to subsidize what they would pay. I'm okay with that.
Unidentified speakerVoice E
There would not be a way to use Penny for Pasco money. There might be a way to use Well, there would be a way to use Penny for Pasco EDA money, I guess. The the economic portion, but
Unidentified speakerVoice F
not the public safety portion.
Projects already.
StarkeyChair
David, come on up.
David Engel
Who's trying to hold
StarkeyChair
back?
David Engel
David Engel, Planning and Economic Development Director. What was the question, please? Um
StarkeyChair
We wanna know if we can um use some of your funds uh to help um put together an economic incentive package that might offset some of these costs for the fire increase in fire impact fee in the commercial and industrial.
David Engel
Well generally and typically we We waive that for the EDC projects that are target industry related because that's consistent with the board's guidance and earmarking for funds out of the Penny for Pasco economic development. Um we haven't really considered using these funds for spec buildings or non-incentivized projects. So I don't have an answer for you, but we certainly will examine that and get back to the board if that's the direction of the S.
StarkeyChair
Well it sounds like you have the ability to do it. Um we want to be careful that we're not waiving all the fire fees. So that we're collecting some. Some.
Unidentified speakerVoice E
So you can't waive fee. You can't waive an impact fee. You can reimburse it from another funding source. No, I understand, sir. But
David Engel
we're with a commitment.
StarkeyChair
We've got to talk about that. But uh but Commissioner, it sounds like we do have some flexibility, so
David Engel
Uh-huh.
I I would like to just alert to the board we d we don't want to dissipate all our funds if a big you know target industry project comes in or something else the board wants to get behind. Uh so Why don't I work with the with the the chief and the administration and come back with maybe a proposal?
StarkeyChair
Well I think I think we can get it done.
Mike Carballa
Yeah. I mean the structure exists. I think that's that's that's the point. And so the question before the board is is to cap or not to cap. Commissioner Mariano's concern really surrounds targeted industry or economic development incentives. And so if we have a targeted industry that's going to come in and build a larger facility, it is the discretion of the board to decide how to allocate funds. Whether it's mobility fees, utility fees, uh fire impact fee, depending on on that. This this calculation obviously would would drive it higher on a per square foot basis, but I I think you
have the mechanisms at your disposal to make it happen.
Unidentified speakerVoice F
Um uh David Goldsey? Remember the mini warehouses are also occupying a lot of square footage. And I don't think you want to be subsidizing those. So I agree with you know, the county administrator should be a case by case analysis as to whether you wanna Provide incentives to these these users.
StarkeyChair
Okay. So Sounds like we have some flexibility.
MarianoVice Chair
Yeah, it'd be tough to get it. What what about using that two hundred and fifty thousand square foot number? By the cap.
StarkeyChair
I think it should be higher.
Mike Carballa
Well we'd have to go back and I would imagine the consultant would need to run some numbers or I don't know what went into your your planning number for your your dollars.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
We could, yeah, we would have to run some numbers but um I think that's within the further if you want to make that Cap, we can make that cap, but To give you the specific data to give you the specific data related to that number, we'd have to go back and run some more numbers.
MarianoVice Chair
ten thousand square?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Fifty thousand
MarianoVice Chair
fifty thousand square. Did you calculate that into this document or no?
Unidentified speakerVoice D
No, so none of uh part of part of the process, uh um Commissioner is uh calculating the county's existing capacity in terms of residential dwelling units but also non residential square footage that's covered by the service area, the fire department. And we didn't cap the square footage that it's included in the existing capacity. So we allowing for basically the total of all the buildings within the county. are covered by the fire rescue
service. So the capacity numbers would change if we said, you know, there is no additional impact. on service beyond two hundred and fifty thousand, then we would go through recalculate the capacity, I could tell you what would happen is it would probably drive up that dollar per square foot. And so You'd be calculating the same revenue but different fees because it would be capped at uh if that if that makes sense, because it would be capped at two fifty.
MarianoVice Chair
It doesn't make sense that you would go through this when we had a cap in place and not to factor that in when you brought it to us. So we'd have that to look at today rather than going back. Because I certainly don't want to slow this thing down. At the same time I don't want to kill what could be job creating things either.
Yeager
I I have a question for Chief Gwen. So Um out of all of the the counties, how many did have a cap? Do you know that?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
In the Tampa Bay area that we that we surveyed, none.
Yeager
Okay. So eve di did you in the state of Florida?
Unidentified speakerVoice A
I didn't do a statewide. Okay.
StarkeyChair
I think it's not To comp you know, to say if Hernando and Citrus didn't have a cap I I would be more interested if Hellsboro and Polk didn't have a cap. I I um So Uh I'd be okay with the cap, Commissioner Mariano, if it was higher than two fifty.
MarianoVice Chair
Yeah,
Oakley
I wouldn't. Two fifty is too low. I wouldn't want to put a cap on it. Me neither. I think we can handle it as as the building and Properties coming forward. We can have it. by individual customers if that becomes an issue.
Yeager
I agree.
Unidentified speakerVoice E
Madam Chairman Mariano. Sorry. If if so m and that was the question I was trying to explore with the consultant. If if in fact The cap was arbitrary in your previous fee. Um or I would not recommend you I mean I think that's why the consultant didn't look at a gap. in reviewing your new fee moving forward. is if there is no appreciable difference
if the magnitude of scale of a building creates more fire demand, fire service demand, then they should be paying a higher fee. and that's the fee that you've got developed that makes it more legally defensible. If The board wishes to incentivize target industries that might have a big building. I think you do that in another way and fund And the the same way we do mobility fees and we take
money from the TIFF to pay down those businesses that you're looking to incentivize, I think you take the same approach with fire rescue.
StarkeyChair
Okay. David have a little hesitancy there. Did you want to say something?
Unidentified speakerVoice F
No, I have nothing to add to what
StarkeyChair
I kind
Unidentified speakerVoice F
of
Unidentified speakerVoice A
do. Commissioner Weightman.
Go ahead, Chief. I
was
just gonna confirm I uh uh Fire Marshall did confirm that Hillsborough County does not have a commercial cabin.
StarkeyChair
Uh huh. So and they have those tall buildings.
Unidentified speakerVoice A
Yes, ma'am. Yeah.
StarkeyChair
Okay. All right, well I'll Swing it without a cap. Yeah. So I'd take a motion. Wait, uh it's a public hearing?
Oakley
No, this is your this is your workshop.
So if that was Oh this is the forty this is the R. Okay. Wait.
Unidentified speakerVoice F
We did ask that you take public comment at this particular workshop just because that appears to be the statutory intent of this workshop is that you get public comment.
StarkeyChair
Okay. Uh does anyone want to speak to this item?
Is anyone online wishing to speak to this item? I do not believe so. Okay, and was there
Unidentified speakerVoice E
I'm sorry there was there so you would you would close the public you would close the workshop and you'd move into item fifty one which is the ordinance adopting the fees.
StarkeyChair
Okay, so the workshop is now closed and we'll take up P fifty one.