An Ordinance By The Pasco County Board Of County Commissioners Amending The Pasco County Land Development Code To Increase Fire Combat And Rescue Impact Fees Beyond The Phase-In Limitations In Section 163.31801(6), Florida Statutes; Amending Section 103.1 Jurisdictional Applicability; Providing For Amendments To Section 1302.6 Fire Combat And Rescue Service Impact Fee, To Make Such Section Consistent With The 2024 Fire Combat And Rescue Service Impact Fee Study And To Adopt Such Study; To Increase The Amount Of Fire Combat And Rescue Service Impact Fees; Providing For Additional Amendments As Necessary To Ensure Internal Consistency; Providing For Applicability; Repealer; Providing For Severability; Inclusion Into The Land Development Code, And An Effective Date.
What the county recorded
Staff recommendation
Approve
DispositionAdopted
Approved to adopt by a roll call vote.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, May 20, 2025
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, May 20, 2025
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
This case, across meetings
FR-25-1621 in full →FR-25-1621 was taken up 3 times between Apr 17, 2025 and May 20, 2025 — this is appearance 3.
- Apr 17, 2025PlanningPC10▶Approved
- Apr 22, 2025BoardP51▶No action
- May 20, 2025BoardP45▶Adoptedthis item
What was said
Machine transcription of 11m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 59% of 70 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
We heard you. District five, Commissioner Mariano. Aye. District three, Chairman Starkey. Aye. Okay. P forty five. I'm gonna read P forty five's proof once again, um, just because we were a little bit out of order. It's was published in the Tampa Bay Times on April 2nd, 2025.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Commissioner, Madam Clerk, Councillor, Justin Frum, Fire Marshal with Pasco Fire. Along with Chief Quinn, Fire Chief. Uh item P45 is file number FR25-1621, an ordinance by the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners amending the Pasco County Land Development Code to increase fire combat and rescue impact fee beyond the phase and limitations of section 163.31801 subsection six FORTA statutes. Amending section one zero three point one jurisdictional
applicability providing for amendments to section one three zero two point six, Fire Combat and Rescue Service impact fee, to make such sections consistent with the twenty twenty four Fire Combat and Rescue Service Impact Fee Study and who adopt such study. To increase the amount of fire combat and rescue service impact fees, providing for additional amendments as necessary to ensure internal consistency, providing for applicability, repealer, providing for several, inclusion in the land development code, and an effective date. We
do have a presentation prepared uh if you would like. Myself, Chief Gwynn and Peter Napoli is here at your disposal to answer any questions. and our ask to the board is to accept public comment, adopt the proposed ordinance amendment by roll call vote. Authorize the chairman to execute such a ordinance amendment. and direct board records to transmit such ordinance to the Department of State by electronic mail within ten days. after adoption of the admiral. Ordinance amendment.
Madam Chair. Yeah. I think we discussed this pretty well last time. And I want to say I I appreciate Chief Grasher reaching out to find out that no other places have those caps, so I'm comfortable the way it's been set up. As we discussed last meeting.
Okay. Well see I personally think when we're raising people's when we're going to people's wallets we should have a public hearing. I mean we should talk about it. And as you know, I thought we should cap some of the really big buildings. Um I don't remember what number I suggested last time.
Two hundred and fifty thousand square feet, ma'am. Yeah.
Which is there are we don't have very many of those, but Correct. So do you think you can just briefly do a little presentation? Not the whole one, but just go into a little little more depth. Yep, we could
go hit the cliff notes and we could address uh that two fifty
Oh, is that not it? Not up. Sorry.
I got it now.
You don't have to do the whole one. No. We need more we have more stuff.
No?
Okay. Uh so while we're here before you we looked internally, this started uh over three years ago at our capital revenue in the form of impact fees on both the uh fire combat and rescue impact fees. To that point, it was well underfunded to sustain the population growth and the increase in calls for service and demands on our service delivery. The Board of County Commissioners County Administrator the men and women of our agency have gone leaps and bounds to carry
our agency into a premier industry standard setting department. With the inundation of population growth, uh the demands on our services in the form of our unit hour utilization, our response times and different disciplines and geographical areas in the county seeing the implications of that. The ask was to stand tech consulting to come in and conduct a third party review of our current impact fee and make their recommendations. Um those recommendations were
were set before you. uh in the hopes to parallel uh and reduce the amount of impact fee collection. Two. uh thirty-five months down to approximately fifteen months to be able to fund one new service delivery area based off the capital revenue uh in the form of impact fees.
Um With respect to the cap, uh currently there's a uh a square foot cap. Uh Chairman Starkey brought up the point of possibly entertaining a two hundred and fifty thousand square foot cap.
Um Two Change that and a look at that if we were to implement that. The increase would go from six thirty-two To three seventy-five.
From six from s what so six hundred thirty-two dollars to three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. No. No. No, what? No.
Per square foot three hundred dollars.
Oh per square foot.
Yeah. So the the current proposal as it's before you today without the gap is to increase of three hundred and sixty-two. Uh and with a Retaining a cap at two hundred and fifty thousand square foot, that would increase to three hundred and seventy-five. And then on the rescue service it would increase from two twenty-four to two thirty-four. Also at your disposal is the fact in the form of variance for any specific case-by-case matters that's brought before that
may exceed any commercial cap.
Okay. So I don't think it does.
So
and
if and and and that that is our position and ask as well as a consulting firm is that we forego the commercial cap And uh Or ask is that the recommended proposed increase.
So so you are recommending a commercial cap?
No,
no.
So how much would the Amazon building or Target? Be you know.
Madam Chairman
Mariano.
You will be forcing that fee. Down correct? You're you're forcing it down to lower to other square footage.
Forcing the impact fee up by imp implementing a a correct basis.
Correct. Right. So And I don't know that the consultant was the consultant able to identify That the calls for service to a larger building would be less.
The calls for service no, the resources and the commitment that we have to provide the level of protection is exacerbated by the wrong proximity of the that uh and the demands on the on the building.
All right. But the true side, hotels and hospitals and They're gonna be paying a lot more. Okay. Not necessarily.
willing to to accept the motion without the cap. But I do want to leave the opportunity there that depending on the user that comes in, I talked about this with Mr. Kavala. that uh we can look at them if it's a sizable business and they're looking to be in sent you know, to land in Pasco. that we'd have the flexibility to Negotiate.
I would like
to uh something within it, you know, but that's I'm sure those are gonna be rare, few, far between. Go ahead, Mike.
Yeah, I just want to be clear on what that is. Is it any business that comes in, you're free to have an economic type incentive deal or an arrangement based on based on the industry or business. You've always had that. And whatever those fees or whatever those monies are can go to pay down, for example, this impact fee would be an example of what that would be. So you you're not actually waiving the impact fee so much as either funding it from a different source of funds is but you have that flexibility in in how you negotiate deals all the time when it comes to economic incentives.
Okay, and um uh I wanna be sure uh Lisa didn't want to say anything, just I don't I can't see hands up or anything here. Does anyone
I support the no cap.
Just for the no cap. Okay. Um And there is one thing that I I would ask And we have built some beautiful fire stations and I talked to you all about this. But I feel Um we need to be a little more careful about are spending on the fire stations. I mean they're they're absolutely beautiful and I'm glad People are very comfortable in them.
I think we've gone kind of luxurious when maybe we don't have to go so so luxurious.
The Chief and others have answered that before they are looking at ways to uh sharpen the pencil on those
buildings
in the future.
And he and you went over that a little bit with me when I toured that your new 17.
And and for the record, we've we've worked with Andrew Baxter and his team. We've we've decreased the fire station bills by about $1.9 million already, just in existing changes. And our future bills going forward were certainly.
Okay. That's awesome. Sure. Okay. Yeah.
When are we ha Mike, when are we having our impact fee conversation? I I think it's important. It's our impact fee are heavy. I know we're capturing funds with all the new folks that are moving in the Pasco. But I do have concern for those who've lived here a long time. And wanna build a house. uh or upgrade or wherever and it's just pricing them out of the market. So Looking forward to an impact fee conversation. Um anytime we raise taxes or fees it's It's pain point for me, Chief. Um but
yours, you know yours is important, but overall I'd like to take an overall look at impact fee.
Yes, Commissioner Weightman. We we are planning on in conjunction with the mobility fee update uh which is coming towards the end of the summer at the same time to present that to the board in a workshop as well as a holistic approach to impact fee as as you had requested uh at a previous meeting. So we'll have that discussion. Thank you.
Okay. And do we have a second? Oh it's a public hearing. Would anyone like to speak to this item?
I have no one signed up and no one on WebEx for this item.
Seeing no one, I'll take a motion.
Mm-hmm. Second.
All in favor, roll call vote. Roll call. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Oakley.
District One Commissioner Oakley.
Aye.
District two, Commissioner Weightman. Aye. District four, Commissioner Yeager.
District five, Commissioner Mariano. Aye. District three, Chairman Starkey.
Aye.
Okay.
There you go. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Okay.
All right, P um
forty
six. Item P forty six was published in the Tambay Times on April thirtieth, twenty twenty five.