An Ordinance By The Pasco County Board Of County Commissioners Amending The Pasco County Land Development Code; Providing For Amendments To Section 1302.3, School Impact Fees, To Make Such Section Consistent With The 2024 School Impact Fee Study And To Adopt Such Study; To Increase The Amount Of School Impact Fees; Providing For Additional Amendments As Necessary To Ensure Internal Consistency; Providing For Applicability, Repealer, Severability, Inclusion Into The Land Development Code, Modification And An Effective Date.
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
Approve
DispositionApproved
Approved the item per Staff’s recommendation.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Jul 25, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Planning Commission, Jul 25, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
PEG-24-0396 in full →PEG-24-0396 was taken up 3 times between Jul 25, 2024 and Aug 21, 2024 — this is appearance 1.
- Jul 25, 2024PlanningPC15▶Approvedthis item
- Aug 6, 2024BoardP54▶No action
- Aug 21, 2024BoardP58▶No disposition in the minutes
What was said
Machine transcription of 34m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 67% of 146 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
All right, Mr. Chairman M C fifteen.
Is it the lighting? Mood
lighting, I guess, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what they call it? They do this more often.
What is it?
And in PC fifteen, um the school impact fee.
Okay. Thank you.
I believe this is being presented by Mr. Gad.
Good afternoon, Commissioners. Um I can't resist making a personal comment. I'm an avid quail hunter and I have very little sympathy for the eastern diamondback rattler.
They don't taste bad either. I've met three of them in my lifetime. I don't want to meet any more.
Yeah, that's more than enough.
This is my last hurrah. This is the third impact fee I've worked on. and I'm retiring in September. Um the people that are with me today have done all the heavy lifting and I just wanted an opportunity to dress the Planning Commission one last time. I wanna tell you who's with us. We have over here our assistant superintendent Betsy Kuhn, who's done a lot of heavy lifting on this impact fee. Tammy Taylor, our CFO. And our outstanding vice chair on the school board, Alison
Crumley. Um we also have Cynthia Armstrong here. I think a lot of you know her on our school board
never
heard of her.
Never heard
of her. Never heard of us. She's been a great friend of the school system and Colin Colleen Bowen from Central Pasco. We also have two of our oversight committee members on the um Penny for Pasco Oversight Committee and that's Hugh Townsend who I'm sure you've seen here before. Yes, we have. And Tom Suratko, who currently chairs our Penny for Pasco Oversight Committee. The last time we uh commissioned
a impact fee study was two thousand and seventeen. That was the third one that I've worked on. I'm proud to say that in every impact fee. We passed three of them. Um the Builders, Tampa Bay Builders Association Association at one time it was the Pasco Builders Association, has stood side by side with us at the podium in front of the county commission and supported our Um B The same is true
today. I thought Edward Briggs was going to be here. He represents the Tampa Bay Builders Association. I don't think he's in the audience.
He's here. He stepped out. He stepped out. Well uh he's on the phone call, but he's here.
But I know that he has sent you the letter of support from the Tampa Bay Builders Association. I want you to know that before we commissioned this study, we brought the Tampa Bay Builders Association into our office. And ask them is it was there anything in particular we wanted to focus on? Was there anything in particular that they wanted us to do relative to the impact fee study? And they had a few questions. Uh we Took those to heart. We completed the impact fee
study. Then we had a a Zoom meeting with them And about Four to five days later they voted in an open board meeting to fully support the impact fee. The impact fee is incremental at $1,000 a year. And as you know, the legislature has changed the rules related to impact fees so that impact fees can not exceed 50% of the difference between the existing impact
fee and the new recommended impact fee. We fall under that and we're doing an incremental impact of a thousand dollars a year. if you ask where did that come from? It was arbitrary. We sat down with the builders and we wanted to stay under the statutory limits, and a thousand dollars a year looked good. Now we have not met with folks from the multifamily apartment business um They don't have local representation
as far as I know. Uh but they have a group that comes out of Miami. And as a I think somewhat humorous aside, David Goldstein will remember this. In 2017, when we increased the impact fee, the multifamily folks showed up here and said it would be devastating to the construction of apartments in Pasco County. I find that humorous given what's happened since 2017. And we have not met with any
folks from the mobile home community. Uh our impact fee consultant is here with us today, Carson Bice. Right here. Uh we paid for him to come here, so I invite you to ask him the toughest questions you can possibly ask him. Um He tells me he's good at dancing. I'd like to see a little bit of it. There you go. Where's the
music?
And Chris Williams and Betsy Kuhn can both tell you what we're facing in square foot cost. I think there's every one of you up there knows what we're facing in terms of square foot costs. Over the past ten years, our square foot costs to build a school have almost doubled. In two thousand seventy We paid $178 a square foot to build Cypress Creek Middle. We We are now running around three thirty, three thirty-five. And
we actually built a building not long ago that was around three ninety a square foot. So the impact fee is very much needed and I'm pleased that the sales tax passed again um because I think it will help us keep up in Pasco County relative to growth. So without further ado, I'd like to bring Carson Bice up. If you have any questions for him, and
I have a couple questions, Mr. Gadd. Okay. So how many years have you been with the school board now?
Over forty years.
Over forty years.
I thought you'd beat me out. Well
I think I just did. No. I'm s I didn't quit yet. No, I I just wanted to uh say in front of everybody, you know, how much I think we all and especially me Appreciate the work you've done over the years. You've always been a great person to work with. You've always been considerate of everybody's concerns and and you've done a masterful, I think. and very professional and courteous. uh job Yeah, with the with the school board. and
taking real heart in to the uh betterment of Pasco County. And I I think it's really a credit to to you and and to all the people that are here with you today. to uh to say thank you And uh I'm sure we'll find something for you to do, you know, in the coming months and years. So Just stay t stay tuned.
Well ditto to you because I feel the same about you, Chuck. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. An institution in this community. I've enjoyed working with you.
Thank you, Matt. Okay, so who's the v next victim?
Thanks, Ray. I'm Carson Bice with Tischler Bice. We're based in Bethesda, Maryland and Boise, Idaho. And I'm assuming I can Yeah, there we go. Right next to each other. What's that? Maryland and Idaho, right? Yeah. Drive to work. A lot of diversity uh between the two states. Um anyway, the joke in Boise is is that's California's fifth largest city as well California. Which is why we have an office there. Uh a little bit about us. Uh
our firm is, as I said, is based in Bethesda, Maryland, and Boise, Idaho, and we have a unique specialty on cost of growth issues, specifically impact fees and infrastructure financing strategies, as well as is fiscal and economic impact analysis. And we've done more of this type of work than than any firm in the country, and we've got considerable uh school impact fee experience here in the state of Florida. Uh a little bit about the Pasco County school impact fee. Uh nothing has changed relative to the components that's within the calculation. It does
have uh the cost of construction of additional classroom space. Uh it also has a land component and also has a component for buses. Uh we use what we call the consumption-based or incremental expansion approach, very standard for impact fees, particularly schools, where we take a snap. snapshot of the current level of service as it relates to uh you know the the size the average size of like an elementary school uh student seats, what does it cost to build that seat, what does it cost to buy land, et cetera. Uh and then we also have to guard against new development
pain twice through credits or offsets. Uh so as part of this calculation, uh we've been very generous with the credits and have actually given more than legally that we would we would be required to do. But we want to err on the side of being conservative. So we have credits for future payment on it on existing debt issuances. We have future capital outlay and debt service revenue. a credit for that, a credit for future penny for Pasco sales tax revenue, as well as a credit for uh future local
capital improvement millage revenue. Uh as the first step in in conducting an impact fee analysis, we have to determine what the demand indicators are. And for uh school capacity, it's the number of public school age children uh per housing unit. And so we calculated these student generation rates shown in the green column here by type of uh housing unit using geocoded data provided by the school board. So it is
Pasco County specific. It's not the the U.S. Census public use microsample data for the county. It's actually based on uh the geocoded data provided by the the school board. And then by applying uh these student generation rates to the increase the projected increase in housing units over the next ten years, we are projecting an additional thirteen thousand seven hundred uh school students in the Pasco County school system.
So this slide here shows planned permanent capacity additions, and the focus of these are on the first or the initial five years. And I'll get into that here in a second. But there's three or four projects here with the total additional student seats of 4,160. And one of those, the Dayspring Angeline, is a charter school that will receive impact fee funding.
And then what we do is we program in these planned capacity additions and then compare that to the enrollment projection. And it's kind of hard to read from here, but there's there's two circles here, and that's why I brought my computer with me so I could actually read you the numbers. But with the planned expansions over the next 10 years at the K through eight level. Even with that addition of 3,560 public seats, not including the charter school seats,
the K-8 system will be at 99% of capacity. Now, if we didn't add any of these seats at all, we would be at 105% capacity. Although we don't have additional student seats programmed in the CIP for high schools, it's clear from the Bottom chart that additional high school capacity will be needed in the next 10 years and we expect the school uh district to come forward with plans for additional seats, whether they're classroom uh additions uh or a brand new school.
Uh but we would be at hundred percent capacity uh uh at the end of the uh the ten year period without additional seats.
Uh here's the component for land. Again, we like to be uh conservative with our assumptions, and rather than project the future cost of land, uh we look at well, what has the district paid for over the last four or five years, either through purchases uh or land that's under contract or through impact fee credits. And so we've got five examples. here with the total cost of 14.2 million for a total of 237 acres. And so that results
in a weighted cost per acre of $59, uh, eight hundred and forty-six dollars.
And then we ha also have a cost of construction. And that is based on these planned uh uh projects. Uh we've got a weighted average cost of $361 a square foot when we look at these four uh capacity additions. And then finally, there is a cost for buses within the uh the analysis, and we look at the total inventory of buses and what does it cost to purchase tomorrow or today, which
is $137,688, and we get our cost per student by comparing that to existing enrollment.
And then finally, uh this table here walks you through from top to bottom, basically it's a summary of all of these different slides that I've shown you to date. Uh the top part of the uh slide shows the student generation rates that we discussed in the beginning, and then we walk ourselves down through these levels of service for PK through eight as well as high school in terms of the Cost per student for building construction, the cost per student for land, the
cost for buses, and so we get that total, that gross capital cost per student of 53,598 for PK through eight and forty-six thousand eight seventy-nine at the high school level. And from that, we then deduct those credits that I mentioned. Uh and so we get a uh net local capital cost of thirty-seven thousand four hundred and fifty dollars. uh for the uh PK through eight and then uh thirty seven thirty thousand seven hundred and thirty one uh at the um Um Yeah,
K through or uh nine through twelve. Uh Vee level. So the next slide is the maximum supportable impact fee. And so uh Mr. Gadd mentioned that there's a statutory limit. Uh the Act, the Impact Fee Act was changed about three or four years ago, which limits the increases uh for impact fee, and it also limits the the how often you can do the studies. You have to do it uh at a or the the fees have to you can't do a study except for every four years and some
jurisdictions like Osseola and a few others are doing them every two or three years. But you can see here in the green column the maximum supportable fee for a single family unit is $13,613. Uh multifamily is $6,576 and mobile home is $6,666. And the changes to the Impact Fee Act state that if you're going to increase the impact fees between zero and twenty-five percent, they have to be done in two annual equal increments. If we're gonna go between twenty-five
and fifty percent, it has to be over a four-year or four equal increments. And as you can see here in the sort of the salmon colored column that we are exceeding the 25% increase for all three housing types. And the statutory limits are there shown in blue, where the maximum supportable was 13613, but we're statutorily capped at 12,492.
And finally, as Mr. Gadd mentioned, there was negotiations with the home builders, and this shows you the recommended impact fee compared to the maximum supportable and the statutorily limited. Fee. And so we are proposing these $1,000 increases over a four-year period. So the single family fee would be $900 or $9,328 in year one and would ratchet up to $12,328
by the end of the four-year period. uh multifamily would be capped out over the four year period at sixty three eighty nine and a mobile home at sixty four thousand or sixty four hundred and seventy seven dollars. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the Planning Commission may have.
I might I had a couple. Yeah go ahead. Go ahead. I thought he couldn't have done that good a job.
He's good, but not that good. Um one could you explain the the credit for existing debt payments? 'Cause it almost sounds like um that's a payment being made by the school board out as opposed to money coming in. So is that Revenues coming in from existing geo bonds or
So w if I cut if I pay an impact fee, I'm also paying property tax that goes to retire that debt, but also property tax of the future that may go to retire future debt, and I'm also generating sales tax money that you're going to use to retire bonds as well.
Okay.
Uh or or use for school construction. So the ex the existing debt credit includes debt that's being retired with sales tax bonds as well as uh certificates of participation and uh bonds backed by property tax. Then there's a credit for future revenue, which would be the future sales tax that you could use for capacity. And future local capital improvement millage that you could use for future capacity.
So it's a decrease in the payments that the school board's making on these general obligations. Okay. And then the other question I I had was um on the uh I think it was a previous slide where it's showing the maximum change. Uh maximum change is fifty percent, but um on multifamily mobile home you have it at thirty five and thirty percent. So I was just curious why that was listed there. The statutory limit was listed lower.
So the statute so we can't We can't increase more than fifty percent without Correct. Providing for extraordinary circumstances where there is a process you can go to. And some jurisdictions have done that. So the ma while the maximum supportable is thirteen thousand six hundred and thirteen, if we cap it at the fifty percent, it's twelve thousand four nineteen.
Right, yeah, I got that. But the two the the two below that, so the cap would actually the session limit would actually be higher than what is being recommended.
Right.
Okay. So statutory limit on that is actually eight thousand dollars for the multifamily, for example. Okay. So that's just an incorrect number in that column?
No. I th I think I think you're are you just asking why didn't we go to the max?
Well no, I'm just asking why the statutory limit was listed as lower. It was listed as thirty-five and thirty percent there. But that's not
that's the percentage change, not the statutory limit.
But so the the total is sixty-five seventy-six. And so the current fee is forty eight Uh forty-four. The difference was sixteen hundred and ninety-two.
Carson, I I can maybe
twenty four hundred dollars would have been the statutory
limit.
Is actually higher than your maximum supportable fee for multiple. We can't justify it.
We can't justify the 50%
of the right-of-way.
Understood. Yeah. Understood.
So that was that was my only you know I just thought that was
The numbers were off.
All right. Yeah. So one question, Mr. Bice. You mentioned that uh day spring Angeline is eligible for impact fee. Is that because of kind of the unique nature of it with Angeline's public fees you know, fields being there? Is that is that typical for charter schools to be able to get impact fees?
Uh well there was a change in legislation that now allows that. Okay. Now I haven't seen it widely used and I don't know the particulars of why this one is is receiving the impact fee. Perhaps Chris or or Mr. Gag could answer that.
One of us can. I'll let Mr. Gadd you don't want to fall in that trap, do you?
By the way, Mr. Williams could easily explain that. Um the Pasco County School Board has taken a position That we don't want to be unfriendly or in opposition to charter schools. And charter schools can help us with growth. And so uh three or four years ago we started reaching out to charter schools. And one of the things we're trying to do is control the type of charter schools that we have in our county. So we reached
out to homegrown effective charter schools like Day Spring. and said, would you want to enter into a cooperative relationship with us? The statutes allow impact fee to be used to build charter schools. So we now have agreements with a couple of charter schools. And there are interesting agreements. And I don't want to go into too much detail, but you might say public money or impact fee money is being used to fund these charter schools.
Бо ви особа контракт с тем детс ⁇ дей фал. for example, or go bankrupt. That those schools return to us. We have what's called a step in agreement. And we are unique in the state in terms of what we are doing with these schools. Um we're probably only gonna do two or three and see if it works out. Um a lot of the builders Um in particular I don't want to single them out. But Lenar has, for example, a strong relationship
with charter schools, and so we've worked with them. Um And our feeling is is that if we can Boost the local charter schools like D Day Spring, then we keep the big corporate charter schools. out of our county and we can have a closer working relationship with the local folks here in the community. Uh and so we Started this um process. Uh we probably won't see any more for years because we want to
see one actually get up and running so that we can make sure it works. We have maintenance agreements with them, insurance agreements with them, cooperative curriculum agreements and sharing agreements with them. But um we are unique across the state in terms of doing this. We're not the only one that does it. But our system of for doing this is very unique and the contracts that we have are very unique. Does that answer the question?
Brain, does that basically work as a almost like a lien on the property for the impact fee that are paid? So if the charter school fails then
Yeah. Absolutely.
And we and we even have little things in there like 'Cause there might you know The charter school might want to go out and expand, but if they want to go out and expand, they have to get our permission. Cause we don't want to be assuming they're dead. So say a charter school goes out and gets a second mortgage because they want to build a building and then they fail and we've got five, ten million dollars in debt if we take that school back over. So we actually have contracts with them where They basically have to
come to us. We allow them to operate freely as a charter school should. But we're not gonna allow them to put us in a debt situation. So we have a lot of little agreements like that in the contracts.
Yeah,
I mean I think that's a great system, honestly.
I I will I will thank you for making Day Spring Angela in your first one because my family will personally benefit from it. So it's pretty selfish I
appreciate that. Okay. So are you saying you can't vote on this? I guess that's a
Well w and you know, I will tell you, um we recently had a controversial one which is was a Patel school because we gave them some land to build a school. And I realize why it's controversial. It's unique and different. People have different perspectives about Charter schools. But to build a high school these days, you know, you're talking about Anywhere from sixty-seven, seventy million to a hundred million dollars. And so we recently
agreed with the charter school to give them a little bit of land. And they're gonna spend fifty milyen dollars building. you know, a school which is fifty million dollars off our books. And at the end of the day, I think it's important to remember that charter schools, in my opinion, are here to stay. and many of them are doing a great job. especially the day springs of the world doing an incredible job. And what a lot of people don't know is that Some charter
schools kind of even though there's a lottery they cherry pick their kids. I think last time I looked at Day Spring there Low income population was about forty-two percent. And they are notoriously an A school. Am I wrong?
From what I understand, that's correct. I'm I'm on the Angeline side, so I benefit from a from the athletic field at the Angeline,
yes. Greg Complex. And that's a new experiment as well. So Uh we think we're saving the taxpayers money. Uh we're gonna find out pretty soon.
Well charter schools already share with uh the voucher program, so it only makes sense for impact money to go there as well. Good job, right.
All right, thank you.
Okay, and I think that's
exactly what you were gonna say, right, Chris?
That's correct.
Yes. I mean the and the one thing I would emphasize is that when we do these, again, we have a step in agreement. If a charter school comes and we don't have a par any kind of relation with them And they fail. then then we're having to figure out where are all those kids gonna go. But with these, where we are trying to control a few of these, um If they do fail and we're not necessarily anticipating they are, but if they do we get We get the building, we have a place to put all of those kids. The
teachers still have jobs. Yeah.
And for those of you who don't know, there might be a few of you who don't know, Chris Williams is a r s representative for the school system on our board, so And we depend on his Wisdom. to point us in the right direction. That's right. Oh boy.
Okay. Is there anybody else who'd like to speak, Allison?
Just briefly.
Welcome by the way.
Thank you for coming. Thank you, Alison Graham. How
do you always do such a good job?
Well I appreciate you saying that. Likewise. Um [address removed]. I assume you need that. And uh thank you, honorable Uh Chairman Gray and uh Attorney Goldstein and honorable members. Appreciate it. I'm gonna I'm gonna recap on a few things and I appreciate my fellow two of my fellow board members being here because we are all so strongly uh behind this. And I just want to remind the proposed increase will assist with keeping
up with our construction costs in our growing school district. We now have almost 90,000 students, in case that's a new number to you. When I started here. Golf High. And they just built Hudson so Quite a we've come quite the way. Impact fees allow the school district to balance building new schools to support new growth while allowing us to renovate our existing schools with the Penny for Pasco funds. As you know, both are equally important. And as someone who went to high school on double
sessions and the forty five fifteen plan. Don't let that for anybody else. It was not good for students. We appreciate the support from the Tampa Bay Builders Association and their strong stance that good schools build strong communities. So again, just thank you very much on behalf of my board. Appreciate it. Thank you.
You said you're at nine ninety thousand now?
Nearly. That includes charters. Yeah, nearly ninety thousand now. I know. So growing every day. So thank you guys so thank you all so much. We really
do.
Thank you.
Okay. Anybody else like to speak?
Welcome.
Good afternoon, uh Chairman Gray, honorable members of the committee. Uh almost like old times, you as chair, I was seated in one of those, and Ray was over where Chris was. But Today I Hugh Townsend, [address removed], uh rise to speak in support. of this impact fee. Back in twenty seventeen I was vice chair of a committee of citizens, builders, and school
uh personnel that worked out the details of the first impact fee or the impact fee at that time. before the pandemic, before the increase that we now see to construction. We need to keep up to date. And increase what we're looking and what we have been receiving in order to provide quality education to our students. Um I uh at fair disclosure, I'm vice chair uh the uh penny for Pasco. So I see how the money is being utilized
and indeed properly utilized. As a slightly funnier side, Anyone that doesn't want to pay the impact fee can easily buy an existing home. Both my children. Bought existing homes, Both now have built brand new homes in Starkey. But my oldest daughter and her husband went out to dinner with my wife and I Just as we were concluding the impact fee in two thousand seventeen. And they had some great news to tell us. And
I had some great news to tell them that we'd negotiated a deal. Well they started first. And they told me they were just looking into and signing to build a brand new house in Starkey Ranch. I picked up the dinner tab that night. But everybody's happy. My grandchildren are going to Starkey. Everything is wonderful, and I truly hope that we can Put this on the books and move forward so that we can continue to
have Excellent education here in Pasco County. Um any questions? Uh does that mean you're buying us all dinner tonight? Well, if you all are gonna buy new uh and build new homes
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It's great to see you again. Great to see you again. Thank you.
Anyone else?
Mr. Chairman Commissioner Edward Briggs, three eight one two Coconut Palm Drive, Tampa, Florida, representing the Tampa Bay Builders Association. I don't want to take up too much of your time, but did want to come up and speak. We just appreciate the opportunity from Ray Gadd, his wonderful staff, the board members to work with them comprehensive on this. They came to us very early on, which I know is hard when you come to the builders and say, Hey, we want to raise impact fee, everyone kind of freaks out. But we appreciate the opportunity to work with them. We think the compromise given to you all on the phase in is really well. We we
understand the importance of schools in our community for for us and for our buyers and everything. So thank you so much for having us be here today.
I appreciate you coming. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon. My name's Tom Skaratka. We live at [address removed]. First of all, I want you to know I told uh Hugh Townsend to keep his presentation very short because he likes to talk. I am Chairman of the uh Penny for Pasco Oversight Committee. What you all have heard, the committee has already heard. And I'll keep my comments short. I too,
and as a member of the Penny for Pasco Oversight Committee and all the committee members, we urge you to approve this increase in the impact fee funds. Thank you. Thank you.
All right.
All right. That being the case.
So on this item, you're sitting as a local planning agency. We're asking that you find the proposed ordinance consistent with the Pasco County Comprehensive Plan and recommend approval to the to the Board of County Commissioners. On this item, the first reading is scheduled for August 6, 2024, at 1:30 P.M. in Dade City, and the adoption is scheduled for August 21st, 2024, at 1.30 in Newport Ritchie.
All right.
Have an uh motion and a multiple second. All in favor? Signify by saying aye.
Okay, well she carries.
Very good. Tough raising taxes, but unfortunately inflation's affected everybody. So and that includes buying schools and property and everything else. So We've got to do what needs to be done. Take care of our kids.
Well,
I'll send
you my share of the bill.
Okay. Thank you very much everybody. Appreciate it. Uh is there anything else Denise?
That's all