Parks impact fee extraordinary circumstances workshop
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The county’s agenda for Planning Commission, Apr 20, 2023
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The county’s minutes for Planning Commission, Apr 20, 2023
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What was said
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Okay. I think this one actually tells the story better. I wish I could have started with this one. So this is the first workshop dedicated to the extraordinary circumstances necessate necessitating the need for the parks and recreation impact fee increase to exceed the phase in limitations in sections 163.318016BC and D of Florida statute.
So this section of Florida statute basically limits impact fee, increases up to fifty percent of the current impact fee rate, and requires that you demonstrate extraordinary circumstances. It also allows for um a phase in uh approach as well. Um however but bec because this impact fee has not been changed for over 20-something years, we went through the process of doing the impact fee study to to define our extraordinary circumstances. We've had an unprecedented amount of development, which
most of you know. Uh the current impact fee. was last adopted back in two thousand two. In addition to construction crease increases and the capital plan needs assessment that I mentioned earlier that I'll go again through in detail if need be. the current impact fee over the course of you know the next ten years or so would generate around fifty two million dollars, just kind of giving some background off off the slide. Land values have also increased. So in order for us to generate
enough money to build the next district park, It would probably take anywhere between twenty to twenty-five years to even accrue enough revenue to to even consider doing that.
And with the revenue being where it is, again, we really can't deliver on the commitment to actually build said facilities. So that's the other reason.
I think we all pretty much know what this slide is here. This is just a producer price index for commodity and construction materials. Again, that in that in that increase in addition to just, you know, the need assessment identifying significantly more facilities than we even actually had originally planned for, is the primary reason for demonstrating the extraordinary circumstances. So the current fee uh again is both in uh single family and multifamily. Total for single family presently is eight hundred and ninety-one dollars
and eighty-two cents. Multifamily is six hundred and twenty-seven dollars. We're proposing to go to a single dwelling unit rate of $3,450.15 per unit. And um I can uh the bottom line is is that the this fee ultimately was calculated off the actual 2022 to 2045 capital plan. Uh inflationary adjustments were included. Um Time to you know construct was all built in. Alan can add anything if I'm
missing, but the cost
Amo. Talking about not
the that one.
Oh. Yeah, I didn't do it. Sorry. I'm looking at it, but I didn't move the PowerPoint. So yeah, here's the proposed new fee. The fee is ultimately generated off that capital plan that I talked about, which is around 21 capital projects, of which six of those are major district parks, where we already control the land and in some cases haven't negotiated credit deals. So if you can imagine trying to negotiate a credit deal underneath the existing fee where the Yeah. The value of the fee for land is one hundred and seventeen dollars. You can imagine how many uh houses
a developer would have to build before they could even recognize that. So quite honestly, it doesn't give us any leverage to even use or strike a credit deal underneath the existing fee structure because of the, you know, high r uh raising prices in in land. So So the proposed land portion of this fee of $34.50 is around $1,000, if I recall correctly. So
Any
questions on that? So I guess Keith just to clarify, so the the increased impact fee is being The improvements that are used to calculate the increased impact fee is for new parks or for upgrades to existing
parks? Very good question. I apologize. So the impact fee can only be used for increased capacity to the inventory. It can't be used for deferred maintenance. This is not an attempt to generate revenue to address backlog and maintenance. That's a general fund, other capital issue that we'll have to figure out some other way to address. This is only to address new growth needs through concurrency.
This particular um Fee displayed here. This is for single family. Single family detached or is this per it's all units.
Yeah, all units.
What do
apartments currently pay?
Six twenty-seven.
And it's eight ninety one for single family.
Yeah, and the just to to point out the reason we went with a single dwelling unit is when we looked at the the difference between um you know the demographics between a single family and a multifamily. I think it was like It was insignificant the difference between how many people live in either unit and quite honestly to clean up the accounting piece, one dwelling unit underneath two categories is a heck of a lot easier to track versus I think currently we have like twenty five twenty-five different accounts um underneath water facilities, all this stuff. So So this is an attempt to streamline the
accounting and primarily based off the fact that we didn't see much of a difference between the two types of units.
W what about other construction costs for uh office buildings, those types of facilities, because you're basing everything on Basically, uh homes. Uh what about
Oh, so you're asking if any other commercial buildings are included? That's also a really good question. So that was discussed. Um It's obviously not being proposed. Um
There are communities that charge fees for hotels, uh, visitation population, that sort of thing. We did not include hotels in the calculation. But oftentimes the parks are considered for people residents. And so the ra the rational nexus, the legal nexus is towards sorting the residents who live here and they're the ones who pay for it.
Well, I think sometimes people who go to uh communities and sp stay your two two or three days at a hotel, they tend to make use of those facilities also. In addition to that, you know, we have another sports fields here. And I was under the impression that hotels The reason why we have these sports fields is to fill up the hotels.
Um
So you see the logic in that.
Oh, I absolutely can see the logic. So the majority of the facilities that we have in place are district park facilities intended to serve the residents. The sports campus over there in Wiregrass, I one could argue that the intent of that facility is primarily for sports tourism, and one could say that the fields that will be constructed there are should be primarily used for those type of events. But you're not wrong in stating that people that come into town go to our facilities, but that's I think it's Currently what we're dealing with is the opposite of that. We're
attempting to serve the residents that are moving here that need facilities that we don't have. Okay.
I live close to the one in Wesley Chapel and they have soccer is a large Okay, let me rephrase that. The soccer fields are constantly being used, and there's a l number of people there, and some of these teams come from out of the area. And these so to me in my thinking would they would be staying at some type of facility like a hotel or a motel.
But anyway, I just I don't want to be that hoarse, but you can see the logic in my thinking about trying to make this fee equitable for everybody who may be using these facilities, especially the larger District Parks.
I will tell you that we work and I don't want to speak for DMO, but we do work very, very closely together um on those type of special events and we have been considering how a partnership with the Parks Department Could move forward where we could address some of the issues that you're referring to. Yes, from a facility perspective.
But why not charge hotels?
It wasn't it wasn't the direction that we were we were given by the board to do that.
Could they tell you specifically not to?
I may be able to help with that. Hotels are one of the uh types of units that have mobility fees reduced in all the other categories. So it probably wouldn't make sense to Well
that's for impacts on the roads, okay, but this is impacts to parks and I agree kind of agree with Peter's point. And I can tell you that I have family comes down and they stay in hotels and then they go use Starkey Park, they go use the public boat ramp.
Is is there any part of the and we're kind of branching off here, but is there any kind of like the tourist tax or the additional hotel tax that goes to help fund maintain maintenance of the existing park facilities?
Well, do you want me to help all with that? Okay, sure. I mean, I don't want to we're gonna get down on the easement. That's okay. I I'm actually the attorney to the tourist development council and have been since 1999. So I'm really familiar with the tourism tax and how we use it and what we do with it and so forth. So um about annually, tourist development will give money to Parks and Rec for field maintenance because they're allowed to, under the statute, spend money on events as well. long as those events are promoted to tourists, including in the ability to spend money on the events is the venue
for the event. So they'll give Keith folks money to make them look good and spruce them up periodically when tourism is bringing championship games. to Pasco County. But the other thing that you might be thinking of is the use of the fields by our youth leagues, which are sometimes they do bring in folks from out of town for tournaments that are independent of our tourism folks. And that's you see a lot of that at the Whistle Chapel District Park. Park that's um you know the premier soccer folks tend to bring in a lot of folks
and they do have residents from out of county that are part of their leagues that use our park. So it is very, very convoluted and and somewhat twisted, but yes, there is a tourism tax that we get every room night we get five five percent now um on the on the dollars spent that goes into our tourism bucket and some of that money does make its way over to parks and rec. And we actually
can any of that money be allocated for acquisition or is it just for maintenance?
We actually built the Wiregrass what's the full title of that place?
Wiregrass Sports Campus.
Yeah, that actually was paid for with tourism tax dollars. So um there's a portion of that that park impact fees were used for, so there is kind of a relationship there of a joint use of that facility. And now that we've taken over the the operation. of that facility through the settlement agreement that was just signed on Tuesday, they'll be taking on a much larger role in in maintaining that that that area. But tourism will be paying for a lot of that from what I understand.
Yeah, well the the facility itself will be paying for trying to pay for itself. So I think that what Elizabeth was referring to is is very accurate because it appears that the activity that you see in some of these facilities, you know, it's a lot. There's a lot of activity occurring, but it doesn't said activity may not trigger the definition for heads and beds, so therefore it's not eligible for that type of income or re or revenue sharing. Uh with that all said, like you know um Mr. Thomas and I have talked about trying to kind of you know, do something uh from a
facility perspective specifically to to send uh the sports tourism uh folks, I guess if you will. I mean right now pretty much every park facility that's that we have is at the disposal of DMO to do those events. So when they're there, those those events qualify. But the standard local programming though, even though you might get five thousand kids in a program, it's people that are making the drive over thirty or four years.
But I also get your point about the commercial businesses as well.
Well I'm trying to to when I look at this I see the pain. Wrong. I see that you're you're zeroing in on one industry
housing development industry basically is going to have the burden of financial burden of the development of some of these parks. And in my opinion, I don't think that's fair. I think you ought to spread the paint out. That's all.
I understand you.
I made my point.
Keith, let me ask you a question. On the um you have a soccer tournament, say at a park. Does the tournament organize or do they pay Like a usage fee to the parks department?
So yes. Yeah, they'll pay like a reservation fee, field fee. So we didn't have those. Um the relatively new concept for Pasco County the last four years, uh three or four years now. But um so either they will pay or DMO will provide some funding. But in all cases, pretty much every user will pay. It'll it'll depend on the category. So if it's a co-sponsored entity, they get the lowest rate, you know, $4, $2 per hour. If it's a four year old, it's a Profit entity, it could be anywhere between thirty or thirty-five dollars an hour. And which is typically those those sport tourism events are on the higher
end because they're nonprofit, they're for profit. So yes. Thank you.
Can I add one more thing, Keith? Um you as you're aware that the um tourism department is embarking on uh updating their strategic plan. And yesterday there was a presentation to the TDC about it, and part of it was looking at your park facilities, they toured them. And they believe that the Starkey Ranch facility is the ideal for sports tourism, and they are interested in working on in their strategic plan with you all to see about that kind of a standard going forward. So maybe
there's money from them for that as well.
Yeah, that's great. Standard sounds awesome. What makes me very nervous is hearing from all those residents from the That we're going to turn that into a sports tourism destination. Yeah. We might we might we might fill the room here on that one.
So
uh you know I think what we
always love it when that happens.
Oh yeah, I love it too. Yeah, especially when I have to present or be a part of the process. Just a quick note on that. We did build uh a new softball complex there, and I think what that group's talking about is we we didn't value engineer it down. We actually said this is what we're doing. What the industry wants to see and took a lot of honestly, I took a lot of um a lot of negative a lot of criticism on that and uh in terms of making it a softball field that it wouldn't be utilized, and my t some of my teams behind me, that place has been booked every weekend since it was built. Um because, you know, shocker,
uh softball's, you know, pretty popular. So anyway, and when you don't have a place to play, uh it's kind of easy to say it's not gonna be a thing. But you know, all it took for for us to do was to build it. So a huge success, yeah.
Could you go forward to your next slide for a second? Or go back to your next slide. Yep. Oh no. Pack one.
Uh the next there you go, yep. Okay.
So can we have a discussion about how you exp got to this number 'cause I'm a little bothered by something that I see here. And I'm looking at Bear with me here. My screen's a little small. Page two hundred and twenty-four of three thirty-six of this agenda. Or that would be let me get to the bottom. Page forty one of your study.
Mm-hmm.
I look at the numbers of the average land value per acre for new parkland.
And I just wanna say whoever calculated them should be the richest real estate investor in history because their land value only ever went Up. And that doesn't happen.
And I don't know how we can make that kind of projection, especially where we are in the state of the economy right now. We have banks failing. We have credit tightening. People are finding it harder. The interest rates doubled in more than a year. People are having a harder time getting alone. And I watched in two thousand eight home values drop by a third forty percent. Just like that. But this makes no assumption that that'll
ever happen again. This makes the assumption that land prices only ever go up. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't raise money for parks. But I question the number and the calculation of that number and I want to make sure that it's a fair number that allows that. construction and development industry to survive. as well, 'cause Peter said, this is putting a big burden You know, one of the things that we get constantly told about and
we can't speak out of both sides of our mouth is we need affordable housing, affordable housing, affordable housing, but we're gonna add Thirty four hundred and fifty dollars. This is a At a minimum On a single family dwelling unit, three hundred and fifty percent increase. And if I'm on an apartment unit, it's a five hundred and fifty percent increase. increase. And the state limits us to a fifty percent. increase and I think the state passed that law to make sure that developers had some
certainty when they were planning projects. I'm not gonna say that I'm not opposed to maybe raising it higher than we have or maybe above the fifty percent. But this is five hundred and fifty percent in some cases if you're an apartment developer. And I see that it's based on numbers and economic analysis that I'm not really comfortable with, that the price of land always
goes up. So John I could probably speak to that 'cause that is in my wheelhouse. Um so it looks like what they're doing is they're um using a standard inflation factor of five percent compounded each year. Um Whether or not inflation inflation historically has been probably around three percent if you go back. Depends on how far you go back. But going back fifty years plus it's been right around three percent. But um typically real estate has tended
to again if you look at a very macro scale across the country Going back to the right-of-way. uh a great length of time, real estate tends to mirror the inflation rate.
Okay,
but this is
higher than the inflation rate.
So uh the in the past inflation rate's been three. Um so you know that it looks like there may be a little bit um heavy on that by figuring a factor of five, but that could be because of expected growth in Pasco County and and Florida in general. So Um if if it were my personal opinion on that factor, that's probably a realistic number. What a five percent compound because it's especially when we've seen the last few years of
uh you know, we even saw double digit inflation at one point in the last year. So And there were times when we've seen deflation. Right.
We have, yes. Right now our Fed's trying to get disinflation. But there's times when there's been deflation and there will be times of deflation.
But historically if you if you look at a hundred year average, inflation's ran around three percent. This isn't a hundred years. Right. Yeah, it's it's very hard to pr project um what inflation or real estate's gonna do next year and never never mind ten years in the future, but Um if if I were a per person laying out this um projection for projected real estate values, that's probably pretty fair as a five percent compound.
If I might, Mr Chair, I just add one note about the methodology for this for your benefit. We We started with the property appraisers numbers and the valuations on the on the tax records which are Slightly low, you know, relative they don't keep up with the market. They're always a year behind. So we were a year behind. Um it was a very conservative starting point that we had because of that. There was some back and forth about do we use the latest sales number for things and we did review that information, but we decided to have a very conservative starting
point for these valuations rather than whatever the market's doing now, which is admittedly very hot, you know, we have inflated property values. So we tried to mitigate that and account for some of that in the work for from our point of department. Yeah.
Yeah, 'cause you have two factors in this. You have real estate appreciation as well as the inflation of uh the dollar itself. So the lower purchasing value of the of the dollar. So Uh I think between the two of those five percent is probably now the only thing you may run into an issue with is uh certain parts of the county perhaps developing at a quicker rate. You know, for instance the the uh you may have a rate of appreciation at six or seven percent in central Pasco, whereas you may have A two or three
percent rate in West Pasco. So
So how does this compare with the surrounding counties?
I don't know if you want to speak to that, but I mean it and there is definitely a section in the uh study for that. But comparable to Hillsborough County, uh they recently increased theirs and they're pretty close to this number. The difference is again we're focusing on a plan-based approach based on the needs assessment. So not consumptive, assuming we're going to need, you know, or not knowing what we're going to do. planning for. And I will say that in presenting it to you know the Tampa Bay Builders Association, I think they appreciated the transparency in the plan approach. I think it's more restrictive because
obviously once you put the plan together, you have to stick to the plan. I can talk about that in the next presentation on the LDC changes. But we felt it was the clearest way to kind of paint the picture on what we're asking for, because we fully understand that this is a big number, but for the most part, part and most of the you know the the folks that I talked to appreciated that they could shop around the projects or the capital projects that they would get from from the actual fee increase.
W my one question though, what um seeds.
They you know, when just looking at You know, west coast counties in Florida. Looks to me like the
Yeah, can you
put that slide up with the highest one?
You know, within the r like in Sarasota County, the highest one is twenty two hundred and fifty three dollars. They Hillsborough Count uh Hillsborough County there is no B. Um Manatee County and there's no fee. Oak County, three hundred and nine dollars. Hernando County, three hundred and forty-four dollars. And Collier County, sixteen hundred and eighty five dollars. I just think it
sounds to me like it puts us at a distinct disadvantage. When people are thinking about Where am I gonna develop and where am I gonna spend my development dollars? That's uh I mean, you're you're more than three times what the highest competitor is. So I mean I'm I'm and those are multifamily. Those aren't those aren't cheap counties.
So if I if I may. Um Try to try to look at it from my perspective of being the public servant that is constantly being bombarded with the request for additional facilities. Honestly, I can tell you when we did the needs assessment back in thirteen that was published in 15 in each zone we were twenty something fields alone behind an individual sports, whether it be soccer or baseball. So I appreciate the concern over the sticker shock. But um again this is a commitment to
complete what we've already through concurrency promised the public that we would do.
Doesn't that assume that the public just willingly pays it and that you don't make it.
The other thing is that we, you know, unlike a lot of counties, we have what, over Well over twenty thousand acres of natural uh you know, forest that's gonna stay that way forever.
Can't play soccer in a forest though, sir.
Well I'm well I I I'm just saying and we've set aside a lot of land. And y you know, you can only bleed people so s so long and so much. And Maybe we oughta start thinking about, you know, charging some use fees if you want to use the field and pay for it.
Yeah. But we we have that in place. That was a fun experience for my team putting that together. Um historically we used to pay people to come sign up for programs thirty, thirty-five years ago. Um I could tell you that we're heavily subsidized, the department's heavily subsidized, the revenue that we bring in compared to our operating budgets, it's about twenty million dollars. We bring in maybe slightly over two point two million. And if we are to raise the fees beyond what we currently adopted, if you think your meetings are packed with a lot of people that
are concerned about development issues, go tell a youth sports organization that they're gonna pay a quarter more per hour and I can guarantee you that you probably wouldn't make it out of the room.
Well
um but
don't have to make them suffer all the pain too. There was a time during COVID where you had the Iron Ranger pay station actually this was during the Great Recession I think, remember, they had the Iron Ranger pay stations at Starkey Park and you had to put pay five dollars to park there? I use the trail. I ride the trail, I love riding that trail and I didn't mind paying the five dollars and I'll tell you I just recently rode the trail a few weeks ago. And I would have happily been kept paying the five dollars to f to
know that the bathrooms would be there when I ride the trail. There used to be restrooms and there used to be water on that trail and it's not there anymore.
Well. Uh you know, we could again that that program was phased out by the board because the board did not want to to assess those fees. And um also, quite honestly, I think the total revenue collected was less than two hundred thousand dollars a year for those fees that were put into place. Um From my perspective, looking at this business every day, there's no fee increase to the general public that you're going to do that is going to offset the cost of these capital needs. It's just it's too cheap. But
here's here's the thing that you that nobody seems to ever think about. Yeah. These fees that we're talking about, they are going to the general public because who else is gonna pay for 'em? And in the end the general public is gonna pay those fees. The government has no money. W it's our money. I didn't know it's our our residents' money. And uh you know, if people I mean, I think that's a good thing Uh that's one of the reasons why our federal government's in such a f bind right now. It's 'cause they're
spending money they don't have. And they're expecting other people to come up with these these funds that Um, you know, as as John, as you said, you know, we're looking for Affordable housing projects. And At the same time we're we're jacking up uh Impact fees. Way beyond what our neighboring counties are doing.
I think that's my issue when I look at what the neighboring counties are charging and I personally think it's unfair I I don't consider Sarasota and Collier to be my neighboring counties and I'm sure that if I looked at the median household income in those counties they don't compare to
Well that's what I'm that's my whole point. They're they're not cheap counties. Right, I agree. You know, I mean these are people that can
afford to pay.
Yeah.
And our fees are topping th those other than the top end in Collier.
Mr. Chair. So in some cases they have dedicated MSTUs for parks, and so the impact fee isn't bearing the sole burden of the cost. And again, there's other ways to get this, but the direction that we were given by the Board was to pursue an impact fee increase.
I am not criticizing what you are doing. I think you have a job and you think you Yeah. We have attacked it the best way you can, but it that's it's our job to review it.
And to make a recommendation to the board. We're not criticizing the staff for following direction.
Yeah. Yeah. And I I think the the board understands, at least I do in my opinion. Is that the right-of-way? There are X amount of dollars, but we do have a need for parks, recreation. We do need that. Absolutely. You know, it it's when a c child or a youth is on the soccer field or the baseball field or the basketball court, you know he's not out there creating a problems like we've seen in some situations in some schools. I used to work for a large city uh in the recreation department and in fact I did that as a
part time job when I went to college. So I know the value in these youth activities. That's what I call 'em. And I know adults also use these facilities. But I know that some of us are senior adults, and I'm probably one of the seniors on the board here. And we don't use those facilities anymore for the most part, but we do use community facilities, especially for the youth and our grandchildren. So we do wanna advocate for that. That's that's what we want to do. But w you know, you gotta be honest, you know, some of these fees in here are extremely high and they are only going after
one industry. And we I don't know what affordable housing is, but I know when you had three thousand, four thousand dollars for a just the basic price of a home based on the taxes, you know the developers are gonna pass that on to the Somebody else. Now that helps me and 'cause I'll resell my house for the extra four K that you want to tax because the developer has to increase his house. So my house becomes more valuable too. So if It'll have the effect of slowing new development for sure. Well, it could or could
not. You know, a lot of people come from up north of these large cities up there. You sell a house in New York City. Yeah.
I just feel like maybe the timing's not right. And I understand the board gave this direction, but Conditions have deteriorated since the time the board gave the direction. They've deteriorated. They've started heading south very quickly.
Yeah. Yeah, mor mortgage starts down eight point eight percent, largest month over month decline.
Exactly. Every day we read layoffs at some point you're going to start seeing that we've been fortunate in that we've been part of a positive migration. Right.
We're in a
little insulated from from COVID. But That ins we're not a hundred percent insulated and we're seeing lots of layoffs in high wage tech jobs, the stuff we're trying to attract, these are the people that can afford the five hundred thousand dollar house. If they're out of jobs, they're not gonna be buying these houses.
And I just
This is just a fee that's gonna get added right on top. The builders aren't gonna eat this.
What what I was going to ask was was this proposed to be added immediately all at once or was it to be phased in or
Yeah, so the uh so the effective date is January first, twenty twenty four. We discussed with the Tampa Bay Builders Association a fa a two-year phase in is what we negotiated. Um and when I presented the introduction last September It was sort of unclear, but the the the direction from the board was not to have a phase in.
So all at once a three hundred three hundred and thirty percent is what I calculated. Yes. Three hundred and thirty percent increase.
And so so what's been the response of so there there is in the phase in you said that the Tampa Bay Builders Association generally supportive of it.
What what now? So we I talked to them yesterday afternoon and so there was some conversations of so I delivered that information that I wasn't 100% certain. We do have the language teed up if that comes through public comment for us to make that modification for the phasing because I think that's fair and appropriate. But the conversation that was had yesterday was We've heard some discussions of potential bonding to get some key projects out of the ground quickly. If that's something that can happen in maybe each three, you know, in each of the three zones, that would be something they
would consider, you know, to be favorable. And that makes sense because again, in some of these developments, the you know, i if you look at the projections, you're not getting any park facility for twenty five years. So um if the board is willing to to look at bonds to get three major projects started, I think that's a tremendous win for all these communities. And um I know it would be a tremendous win for my office because we would at least have extra fields and locations to send these people. And for seniors too, sir. We there's things to do out there. So it's a pickleball. Pickleball
listen, don't you don't want to disrupt a pickleball game, I can assure you.
So the idea of a geobond to cover the cost now with the idea of paying it back through impact fee?
Yeah, I don't think we can actually bond impact fees, but but maybe yeah, reserves, general funds. Right. But it but why the impact fees are there, yeah, you would pay the debt service that way. So it's some it's very similar to what we did at Starkey Ranch District Park. We only had enough money to build a third of the park. Development was coming in. We structured an agreement with the developer. Everyone was excited about that, but we only built a third. So everyone kept asking me, Well, when are you gonna build the rest of the park? Well, I said, I don't know, 15 years, I guess, based on the current rate. And that's when the that's when everything was booming. That's when we were seeing
or still seeing 4,500 single-family homes a year. But it but you're only bringing in a million in revenue. for parks for that specific district. So I don't know where I'm going with this. But we went yeah, we went for a bond, we're able to advance the money, we're able to finish the park out, working with the school board on the joint use, and it's gonna be an amazing, you know, facility. Should have been built day one, but we didn't have the money.
So So what's the phase in schedule that was being discussed?
So it's just a two year phase in, uh sixty percent sixty percent up not fifty fifty, sixty forty, I think is what we proposed. Um Of which they accepted, so at the time.
Who who accepted that?
The Tampa Bay Builders Association. Yeah.
So forty percent would be January one, twenty five. Yeah the forty percent?
Yes, correct.
Yeah.
So that would take the
impact fee, overall impact fee on a single family residence, Pasco County, to twenty eight thousand dollars.
Collectively. That's just shocking. I mean that's just shocking. Yeah. I I l I mean I love the idea of more parks. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, and I think everybody does. It's just that Everybody loves things but they never want to pay for 'em. You know, and uh
Most people don't mind paying their share, but Yeah. And I don't e I'm not even I don't even have a problem with slowing down development. I I don't think that's a bad idea. But I do have a problem with You know, twenty eight thousand dollars in impact fee.
I do and it goes to affordability.
Mm-hmm.
And if you don't think there's an affordability crisis, let me share something that I saw with you two weeks ago. I was in the parking lot of Walmart at Hudson. And I came across an elderly couple living out of the back of a rented U Hall because they couldn't afford their apartment rent.
Yeah.
And I just have a problem with we we keep hearing this about affordable housing. We're seeing it. We're seeing the number of homeless people increase. We're hearing the stories. about how people can't absorb the rent increases anymore and I just don't feel like Now's the time. There may be a time and I'm not gonna tell you that I won't support some imp increase in the impact fee, but I'm just not sure I can go was somewhere between four
and five hundred and fifty percent.
Yeah, I had my m I had an experience recently we dealt with in my business of commercial in commercial real estate. They An insurance company that just bought ten Ten thousand Um R B Lots. Ten thousand RB lots. And they want to buy another hundred thousand. And I asked 'em why and they said, Because People are pouring into the state of Florida. There's no place for them to live that they can afford.
Interestingly enough, my secretary today brought me an ad, and I'm not gonna tell you where it is. It's here in Pasco County. People advertising an RV parked on their property. as a rental unit and I will tell you that in the neighborhood that I live in probably eight out of ten homes have one of those because people can't afford housing. Back to Nice, there's one in my neighborhood that probably has ten or twelve of 'em on it. Along with old junkie mobile homes and everything else.
And and while I agree, you know, I was I think the five percent number might be correct, but I totally agree with what you're saying. I think we're at the the peak of a cycle. We're very close to a peak of a cycle and Um this may not be the right time.
Hey Keith, I have a question about affordable housing. Um I know for the school impact fee ordinance, um, there is a provision that provides that the school district would subsidize the impact fee for habitat projects. And they would basically just take it out of their general revenue and so forth. And I know for mobility fees we can have reduction of ability fees for affordable housing. Um Was any of this conversation thought of at all?
Yeah, so we actually have Brad and I are just having a sidebar conversation on that. So I was asking, you know, definition of affordable housing and I was in the meeting yesterday about you know forty fifty foot lots and what is the definition. I that's not my area of expertise, but I mean if it makes sense to consider that as a provision somehow, as long as it's carefully crafted and and we can create an exemption for that specific unit of development, I think it does make sense because obviously we're faced with a crisis with that and it's important. Again, I'm that's about as much as I want to say on that 'cause I'm
not I mean Terry's here, he could maybe add something. But yeah, I think um if that's a part of the recommendation to the to the board, that's I mean that makes sense, quite honestly. I'm a member of the community like everyone else, so
Yeah, and I I I think really kind of just s summarizing from my point of view, I I think that Um Other things need to be looked at and considered other than just impact fee to to make up for the deficiencies that are out there. I mean we we talked about all the different users that use the parks. Um a lot of people come into this county, whether it's I mean, through all the different variations of taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, some some other method, but I mean to lump all of this and it seems like there's a huge chunk that's getting lumped on the developers and And just pushing impact fee, everybody
keeps hitting the impact fee, hitting the impact fee, which is precisely why I asked the question. at the beginning was is this for new parks or is this for deficiencies for existing parks because I don't really think that the developers should be paying for to make up for the deficiencies that are out there. So That's my position.
And and yeah, and like I had commented earlier, there we are attempting on various fronts through the general fund and other funding sources to to address you know the deficiencies on yeah on the backside. So There has been a conversation of an MSTU and things like that, but again
let me ask this question and this goes to What really has to happen here in order for these impact fee to get raised to this level is we have to find That there's an emergency. or extr and extraordinary circumstances.
I'm having some trouble reconciling in my mind how I didn't do something for twenty one years constitutes an emergency.
Are you referring to the extraordinary workshop requirement that we're exercising right now, or are you just saying justification?
Well that's the justification to go beyond what the state law allows for an increase is that you have to find that there's an emergency and extra
you don't have you you actually aren't taking any action on that. You're just going through this exercise. There's no action on the workshop. That we're having right now. I know items.
In order for the county commission to raise the fees above fifty percent beyond the current level, they have to find that there's an extraordinary circumstance and an emergency.
Right. And that's that's what Keith has presented, the extra the circuit. So
that's what I'm asking is how do you justify that We failed to do something for twenty-one years constitutes an emergency.
I don't know if it's if we're saying it's an emergency. I don't think that words in the statute. And that's obviously I don't think in the statute. It's it's extraordinary circumstances to m to meet the level of service I think ultimately is the end game. And again, um I think that when you have a plan that was done in twenty fifteen that said you're twenty something fields on each side deficient. Uh based on the population projections that were coming in. So why not be done then? Why wasn't what done then? A proposal. So
raise the impact fee. So it was, actually. So we did present a proposal. We presented the entire master plan at the time, which was at that point slightly under $220 million. The board did not uh was not interested at the time to present an increase at at that time. Uh I wasn't in the position that I'm in now, but I was on the team. And I asked them to at least consider addressing the deferred maintenance piece, which was a part of the, you know, which is a part of the $220 million. So uh which then got us to the
general bond obligation which went on referendum which passed I think by seventy-two or seventy-three percent. I think it was the highest bond at the time that went that year, which in my mind highlights the support of the general public for something like that. I was told many, many times that that wouldn't pass, but it passed because I think From my seat. The public finds this extremely important and we're really behind. And I think that that's, you know, we can provide all the numerical information that we need based from the master plan and the impact fee study,
but I feel like we've I feel like we're satisfying that condition of the statute based on what we've done to date.
Well again that that stresses we're behind. So I don't think that developers should be responsible for making up for what you're behind personally. I I think that has to come from other sources.
And in terms of the impact fee which only covers capacity and capital expenditure and additional capacity, the fee is structured to only charge the same level of facility provision that exists today. In fact, it goes down ever so slightly over the the master plan period. But the master plan and the fee is designed to m just maintain the level of park facility and and um park land that exists today per resident in the future. So we're
we're not getting ahead, we're not making up for behind being behind. We're just maintaining the same level with this um proposal that is the master plan plus the fee structure that's there. The other thing about the fee is that it there um if you'll go to the fee slide for a minute, the presentation and the second dependulate slide of the presentation. Um There is the um existing deficiencies credit which comes off that uh we calculated um a
a type of level of service in the study if you've read it carefully um to reduce the amount of money that comes off. And in addition to that, there's the debt service credit so that um the the level of current um debt service that exists out of the fee program is also reduced from the fee. But we we made sure we took We took pains, I'll say, to and went above and beyond a normal impact fee study to demonstrate that we're not charging people for a higher level of service with
this fee than currently exists today.
I mean I I personally I think that the parks are an integral part of ev any community. I mean everybody wants to look at the parks and what are your park features and and What do you have out there? So I mean I'm not belittling the park's value at all. Well in fact fact I might be saying it the other way, that you need more money. I mean but I I I just want to make a sure that I understood correctly what the increased impact fee was for.
I want to make a comment. I um I don't think I am going to vote on this because it doesn't increase density, but this is for new residential development, correct?
Yes, correct.
Okay. And just I mean from a school perspective and we did our impact fee You look at a three thousand dollar charge and you look at a total cost of a home and it's probably less than one percent. That's you're gonna increase your house or cost of the house. They work that out to a mortgage. Just not a whole lot to add on to it. So just a different I am hearing you all and I understand what you are saying, but I'm just to give you a different perspective of what is going on and it is an investment in the community. So that's just my two cents. And I'm not going to vote on this because it does not increase Density.
Oh one more thing.
You don't raise it now, the economy crashes, and then they're gonna then you're never gonna raise it. So and we found that in two thousand eight. We raised our impact fee probably about Yeah. There's never a good time. There's a horrible time after the economy does crash. If it crashes, I'm not going to say it saying it is, but We've run into this before also.
I'd argue though if you raise it now and then the economy crashes, it makes the crash a lot worse for us locally.
Well, there's always the ability to reduce it too. You know, it's a it's an amendment to an ordinance.
Yeah.
I'd have to
go back and look,
but it was at least two hundred and fifty
thousand. No no no. I mean the interest rate right.
I mean we went through a period of historically low interest rates and You know, Last month. I got more money and interest on my savings than I got in ten years. In one month I got it than I got in ten years. Well you got the
big bucks, you know.
Yeah money market rates are at five percent.
I'd like to try mine.
But the problem is is that increases borrowing cost and and that leads to this inflation that we're we're talking about.
That's my point is it may not have been at the time when you had a historically low interest rate, it may not have added that much to the cost of a mortgage, but that numbers significantly changed.
Looks like those rates may be going up again next month too. So I
it reduces influx of um investment um in real estate and things like that as well because they can those investors can get risk-free rates of return. Um You know, in C D Money markets and things like that.
I don't have a crystal ball as to the economy. But I do get signals and signs. One of the things I get is every day I get an email from the water management districts, all five water management districts in the state. with a list of all of the permit applications that were received that day. A year ago. If I would have printed that email out, it would have took two or three pages.
in the past month those applications have dropped off to Half a dozen, six, seven a day. Per district. They're not
It's slowing. I'm seeing the signs of slowing. We can tell you by the phone calls that come into our office. the number of calls for new development and that's why I said I could support some increase. I'm just not sure I can support this much increase at this time.
Uh Elizabeth, let me ask this question here. Could they take this the s the total amount of money that they need and put it into a municipal bond? People do buy bonds. A lot of people do in fact.
Right. But we just we just went out from the bond referendum he was referring to I'm not I don't know if you're not going to be able to
I mean they could. Ultimately it's still gonna result in a tax upon the easy thing.
But people who buy municipal bonds would kick in the the capital expenditure that you need up front.
Yeah we
then they then the county or whoever Has to who is obligated to pay the bonoff can do it a little bit over the next fifty years.
So from an economic standpoint, with a GO bond, um again that's gonna be dictated by prevailing interest rates.
But municipal bonds tend to be much lower than Well correct bonds out there. Yeah, but you know, before uh a muni bond might be yielding three or four percent, you know, now it's six or seven, eight percent. Depends on the obligation. And so that's so that means if you know that's that extra obligation the county has to pay those coupon payments and therefore so it's it's expensive either.
So either you you do the mini municipal bond or you take this amount of money here, and there are gonna be other uh uh expenditures coming forward like the school districts or whatever districts are out there that need the financial resources to c complete projects. And if they add it onto the home That's just gonna be a higher interest rate or could be a higher interest rate. None of us can predict what a home mortgage will be down the road. But You know
the other issue with a Muni bond too is that you um you're kind of predicting what you think that capacity's going to be and if there is a slowdown in housing you may end up building a park that nobody uses. Or not not enough people use.
So I see many bonds as as a possibility and
Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a good suggestion. I I like the idea of Spreading spreading the risk. I don't like the idea of just hitting the homeowner.
I would like to see is I just like to see more parity between what we're charging and what other surrounding counties are charging.
That was good.
Chuck
is clearly I feel like I'm hearing there seems to be at least a majority, if not unanimity, that the number may be too high. Is there a number that We can be
comfortable with Well let me just uh before we s go to there, if you don't mind I I don't wanna c cut your presentation short. I just wanna make sure we You know, we're doing a lot of talking here and we're and we also have to hear from the public, so
Uh hey, uh can I can I ask one quick question here? Uh Mr. Tanello. jarred something in my mind on this that I just kinda wanted maybe to get some clarification on. Probably has to come from uh Elizabeth. Um Normally he would only vote in cases that involve increased density because that impacts the school. But this impacts the school as well. in that uh the co-location of the parks and schools that we try to do would be impacted by the result of this. So can he vote on this?
I think it's just increases in density is actually how the LDC is laid out. But however, don't you vote to break a tie if there's a tie? Okay. Yeah, I can look at the LDC, but I think it's just density.
Because this would impact the school's budget, because they would need to provide those facilities on their own sites. Do we have a lot of those
coming up that are being program through M P U D'screen.
Of the six major projects, at least three of them are tied that way.
Interesting.
And and maybe more if if if you know the LAN configuration works out and stuff like that. There's a there is a huge benefit to do that.
Okay.
Keith, going back to the phase in possibility. When were you directed by the board not to consider that or when w when did they direct you that they did not want to consider the phasing?
It it actually came up with the presentation last September. So literally in the middle of the presentation, yeah, more or less.
That was a much different time.
And the it was a sense of urgency, quite honestly, by some members of the board. It
was
a much
different time back then too. Yeah. Um,
I agree. There's just been a big there's been a lot of things that have happened since that time.
I I did, yes sir.
On the workshop piece, I have uh we have the LDC item next, which
we've got to go back to the well we could talk about the LDC, but we back to the comp plan is preferable because it has to be done first. Okay. I just read through your comp plan amendment. There's no dollar figures in there, but it sets a level of service standard. So you all can go forward with the comp plan amendment with that level of service standard, not knowing how it's gonna ultimately be paid for, and then figure that out later. So you could at least still do some actions today, even if you don't like the number. Okay.
So, Keith, why don't you go through that? Go ahead and go.
What?
Yeah.
Did you want to take public comment on this workshop portion or
anybody in the public? Is there anyone here in the public?
Anyone here who would like to see
it?
I did see comment in the agenda that the County Attorney's Office suggested that we needed to
comment then the f from the public?
No, there's no? All right. Mr.
Chair, also for the record, because I didn't state this, there is no one signed up on WebEx to speak on any of these items. Thank you. So
you could you could then basically close your workshop. It requires no action just that you actually have it pursuant to statute. And then you can go back to the comp plan amendment item.
Okay. So we've thoroughly whipped that horse, I guess. Yeah. So is it th this would be handled like a continuance?
Well let me ask
this
so there's
no
action. So is the statute just that They have to present that they believe there's an extraordinary circumstance or does the board have to find that there's an extraordinary circumstance?
Well that wouldn't be for you all to do, I don't believe, but I can I can confirm that.
So there's actually a second workshop just like this one held before the board. And so that would be in the board's purview. You're just going through the exercise. Since two are required by Florida statute, we decided to make you guys D1 and make the board D one. So
do we make a recommendation to the board on this?
Not on not on this extraordinary stuff. No, no action required. That's what I'm
asking.
Does the board have to make a
they may have to do something. Um I just look at the slides for the statute on it.
See Keith, you went through all this for nothing.
No, but he had to fulfill the requirement and
publication in your street.
You have to provide a justification in the study. The board is a is g ultimately adopting a fee schedule. The study is the The thing that is the the legal standing that you fall back on if there's a challenge to the fee.
That would be presented through transmittal at the time of yeah, the first app hearing.
If I were a board member I would just say I'd I'd want to consider the impact of having a much, much higher fee than Sure, how many counties? And I'd also consider phasing it in at this time because As was mentioned. You know, in Last year.
Completely different economic time. Everybody was flush with money and it looked like a good time to jump in. No, not so much right now.
Yeah, it's a fine line. It's in a dangerous time. I mean the the study identifies deficiencies that that are needed. Um you know that the county has parks they need to build. I don't disagree
with them that they're needed. Just how
do you get them?
Right.
You help mitigate your risk a bit by phasing it in. Uh Maybe over a longer schedule. Would be my suggestion if you were gonna do it.
Just for reference for the school district impact we were phasing it over three years. So it's just it seems like a letter you know, it's a smaller bite to swallow and It went through, so
Is there any limitation to how long you can take to face something like that in? Legally.
I don't think so. No, we we actually used the school board model when we started our initial negotiations with the Tampa Bay Builders Association and I was actually kind of surprised when they came back with a with a two-year. So I was like, okay, two years sounds great. Um but yeah, I don't think there's any restrictions on that. So assuming you meet the justification to define the extraordinary source. circumstances.
Right. Right. Yeah that would that would be my suggestion to the to the board would be to a longer phase in schedule if they absolutely decide they have to have this then
What would that look like, forty, thirty? I mean do you have any kind of what were you kind of proposing in a three year
schedule? Quite honestly when the school board was okay with two, those are the numbers that we worked on. Okay. Um what we did do is we broke
When you look at this, we basically created this f this phasing for capital projects based on the current um build-out you know percentage of each development. So one could say you know, obviously um if you're gonna phase something in you want to at least uh be able to generate enough revenue to complete phase one in a reasonable amount of time, um and then obviously onward down through the phasing. So Uh if I was to have to work on some kind of phase in approach, I would use this schedule. Um because to everyone's point, if
there is a slowdown then obviously the projections of build out that we used six, seven, eight months ago looks different. Um but the critical stuff definitely is tied to phase one uh and and
But uh yeah, that's how I think we would handle that if we had a if that was the recommendation.
What rate of new projects are is this all based on? Is it a certain rate of building
S um well, so it's it's based off the the service area. So if if through concurrency we you know identified those six projects, if I'm understanding your question.
But I meant projected revenue. So revenue generated from the from the impact fee through new building. Right. So there's got to be some projection on Based on yeah, previous uh rates of new housing being built in the county and projecting that out into the future as to how much What rate of new building will be able to create that level of revenue.
I don't have that spreadsheet in front of me, but I know we went through that numerous times. I mean honestly I'd have to
I was just curious what what you base that on. Was it based on the rate of building over the last five years, the rate of new
Oh oh I see what you're saying. Um When I yeah, we did the you wanna chime in?
We did it. Because predicting population by year is tricky business. Right. We we we spent some time to do a longer term forecast of population. And if you look in the report there's several pages of that to demonstrate talking about that. But on the we did a forecast, um it is not published, but there are numbers by district. That information is available if you're interested in seeing what that is. Okay, but th
but those numbers went into
Calculating the potential revenue from this impact fee. We definitely checked that against the master plan, the phasing that you see in the plan, and ensured that the fee you can pay for the phasing that is included in the plan.
So obviously if there's a slowdown in building or slowdown in population influx into the county, then that would affect that future revenue projection. Absolutely. Accordingly.
Yes. And and sh could sh therefore short term funding funding and building possibilities on behalf of the department are are very tricky because you have to um and there and because traditionally the department's been so reliant on impact fee you have to wait till you've saved up enough money. to do it. Uh so there's definitely some short term um strategizing that has to go around. The long term situation is If you do um any bonding or or a large amount of bonding then the counties had a tradition
of paying for interest and and servicing debt out of this fee structure. So just want everyone to be mindful that if if bonding becomes a situation that is promoted. Just like all of us pay interest to the bank or the county pays interest to whoever the debt holders are. And that money would come out of the impact fee study and the long-term ability to implement some of these things might be compromised because the fee is exactly set to how much parks is needed.
So
every each every piece of interest paid out of the impact fee program degrades the ability to deliver the full package of improvements that are embodied in the master plan.
Wi with the uncertainty of that and and the the uncertainty of the future development Isn't it a safer model to fund your future improvements as well as your maintenance and everything with some kind of other tax than an impact fee. To the users that are using the facilities? And those people aren't going anywhere, they're already here.
So I d I don't I guess I'm just kinda I I get lost in in let's use the impact fee as the model for how we're gonna fund these, but oh wait, we don't know if we're gonna collect impact fee or not.
No, I think you're s I so I think there's still two issues there. I think there's the obviously, you know, the the capital maintenance of stuff that's existing and Trying to prepare for the growth through you know, through these future sites. So I don't I don't think that that's what we're saying.
These are all new sites
to
support new growth. Absolutely.
Right.
Which is why the impact fee idea.
And we are and again we are trying to figure out that that continued capital
maintenance. Grants are one thing. Um we there's some provision to allow for grants to be added to the impact fee money to complete the master plan capital improvements. And there and just there's the whole operating side too, which Keith has to figure out how to pay for that that is not subject to these funds. So um there's there's a lot of finding of other sources to fund the whole package of parks and recreation when you include the operation side. on the on the capital side Um having Having watched this this state for a long time and having lived
in Hillsborough during the great financial crisis and recession that happened afterwards. Um there you know, th the the idea that it was never a good time to adopt these fees is is probably a valid one. This is the difficult political decision to make uh for the commissioners that's going to be. Uh it's difficult for us to grapple with as as a community of people um trying to make a a a well thought out and measured decision here. Um button. leading into tougher times, during tougher times you can forget about it. And because people want to reduce impact fees to
for in purpose of economic development. And coming out of difficult times, there's sort of a wave of Hope, growth, and enthusiasm which um is also an okay time politically to try to pass something like this, but there's not the urgency, I think, sometimes during those periods. So It is never a good time and and uh People will continue to want to move to Pasco County. Um we we do a lot of economic forecasting, market analysis, that sort of thing, um financial work and this in this region. I've been working
in this region for over 20 years now. And the people are not gonna stop coming. So um they will come slower and faster, and that is certainly true. But um Just uh finding some time to finding a good time to adopt this fee and get it in place uh so that you have something there, even if you immediately a year later have to step it back for economic development purposes, at least the base fee is in place and allows you to to move it back to that base fee when things are a little less um uh difficult in terms of the
economy.
And I if I can just add one thing too. The importance too of adopting a fee is to have that study adopted by the board, which is your basis for a fee. And if you choose not to fund the level of service or you choose not to fund with all the bells and whistles in that study, that's a policy decision. But you need to have these legal documents adopted and in place after going through the proper public hearing process. Which this I just clarified in the statute No, there is no like actual finding that has to be made at the end of the day. It's merely going through this exercise to allow the public to speak about.
the impact fee and and so forth because it's you're doing something outside of the the uh restrictions in Florida statute. by the timing, you know, the phasing and the amount. Okay.