First 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

3:34:51everybody 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

3:35:21a 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.

3:35:29Thank you.

3:35:32Thank 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.

3:35:51Mm.

3:35:52Um 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

3:36:22limitations, 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.

3:36:43The 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

3:37:14since 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

3:37:4417 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.

3:38:03What is that standard for firefighters per thousand?

3:38:06The uh I have a slide that represents that in just a moment, sir. Jumping ahead.

3:38:13Yeah, 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.

3:38:27And 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

3:38:57year of twenty twenty four. uh surpassing well over one hundred thousand calls for service.

3:39:05Uh 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.

3:39:23Uh 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.

3:39:49Looking 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

3:40:19that 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

3:40:49to 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.

3:41:15Thank 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.

3:41:38And 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

3:42:08is 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.

3:42:35I'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

3:43:05and uh citrus will be coming up soon.

3:43:10These 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.

3:43:45And 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

3:44:15capital improvement plan for the future cost of future facilities that are planned and as a result of growth.

3:44:25Uh 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

3:44:55per 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

3:45:25portion 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

3:45:55in 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

3:46:26per 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

3:46:56to 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.

3:47:17And 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.

3:47:35So 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

3:48:05where 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.

3:48:28And 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.

3:48:42When 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.

3:48:51There actually never was an that was the initial adoption. That was the initial

3:48:55adoption, so there hasn't been an update. That's never been increased since then. And we recommend in looking at these every five years.

3:49:02Mm-hmm.

3:49:10Not any questions?