Senate Bill 180 fire rescue impact fee

1:48:52Um if if David will come up, uh you were all given a copy, uh emailed a copy on Friday of Mr. Goldstein's memo on Senate Bill one eighty and what it potentially can do to the fire rescue impact fee as well as a whole lot of

1:49:13Um I'd like David to kind of walk through his memo with you on the

1:49:18Yeah. So um Mr. Moore kind of briefly touched on Senate Bill 180, but and he he was correct that it does potentially prevent you from adopting more restrictive or burdensome land development regulation and amendments, comprehensive plan amendments. uh moratoriums or any additional procedures that would impact issuance of development orders or permits. The reason the primary purpose for the memo is that This what

1:49:48Mr. Moore did not cover is that there's a section twenty eight of that bill It actually is the more problematic part of the bill because it's retroactive to land develop land development regulations that you've already adopted after August 1st of last year and it prevents anything from being more restrictive or burdensome until October 1st of 2027 for the entire state of Florida. So it's not just within a hundred miles of where the hurricane landed. The entire state of Florida is prevented from adopting

1:50:19more burdensome or restrictive regulations from August first of last year until October 1st of 2027. That's in section twenty-eight of the bill. Mr Moore covered section eighteen. That also applies, but that's for a year after the hurricane makes landfall and only within a hundred miles of where it makes landfall. So The problem with it being retroactive is that it applies to amend potentially applies to land development regulation amendments that you've already adopted. And

1:50:49just by way of example, that would include the car wash ordinance that you adopted in September of last year. Invasive vegetation, there's a few others. But the one that really needed some immediate attention is the fire rescue impact fee because that was due to effect take effect on July 1 of this year. So we tempered after Senate Bill 8180 got signed by the governor, we asked for it to be the implementation to be put on hold until we could. get some feedback from the board about how you wanted to proceed. Yeah.

1:51:21I will tell you this law is not a model of clarity. It does not define what more restrictive or burdensome means, so we don't know what it means. It is not clear about whether it applies to Properties damaged by hurricane or if it applies to the basically all development that occurs in the county. Um so You know, there's a lot of ambiguities in it and I don't know if those ambiguities are gonna are gonna be resolved either through litigation Maybe

1:51:51the legislature will fix it next session. That's my understanding. This this these provisions of the bill were added at the very last minute to this emergency management bill. They were not part of the bill going through the whole process. And so there's very little opportunity for Florida Association of Counties, Florida League of Cities, our own lobbyists to get ahead of this one because it got added at the last minute. There was a big push to ask the governor to veto it. But I think because it was included in an emergency management bill that had

1:52:21otherwise good provisions in it, the governor was reluctant to veto it. So

1:52:26I looking at these you got three options on here.

1:52:30Three options. And they're probably listed in terms of Most aggressive to least.

1:52:34Number one for me.

1:52:35Yeah, so one one would be probably the most aggressive option. Um Three is the most conservative option. One basically is we let the impact fee take effect. Um and then if somebody goes to

1:52:49not not on new construction

1:52:51that was damaged

1:52:52by the hurricane.

1:52:54But let me s let me be clear. even under before one eighty was adopted, we w likely would not have assessed an impact fee to somebody damaged by hurricane because there was already an exception in our ordinance for for um replacement structures. So We don't assess an impact fee on a replacement structure anyway. The other thing that's interesting about our impact fee is we use it to respond to hurricanes. So this is to buy or fire rescue vehicles that we use during a hurricane. Um so I

1:53:24mean if I had to defend any particular ordinance against one eighty, this would probably be it. It's probably a good poster trial if we have to go to litigation because it's so important for public safety purposes. So I'm not sure the legislature realized that they were impacting public safety when they put this in the bill, but for us it is impacting public safety. So option one of the three is basically says that we would allow the impact fee to take effect and

1:53:54then if we get anybody challenging it, we the county attorney's office will defend it and can't promise you whether we will win because it's an ambiguous ambiguous law. I don't know what a judge is going to decide. There is a little bit of a risk that we'd have to pay attorney's fees if we lose. because that's also in the bill. So there is some risk associated with one. That's why it's probably the riskiest option. Two basically says we allow it to take effect and if somebody either sues us or gives us notice that they're invoking the act, then we come back to

1:54:24the board and ask you what you want to do. And then three is probably the most conservative option, which is we just defer the increase until October second of twenty twenty seven or year after the last hurricane has made landfall in Pasco County.

1:54:39Who's good for one besides me? I'm good for one.

1:54:41I'm good for one and ma madam chair, I think just because this I think we started this fee what fi twelve years ago, fifteen years ago, hadn't increased it?

1:54:50We have not increased the fire rescue impact fee since two thousand we since it was originally adopted in two thousand four. Okay. So twenty. Yeah,

1:54:56we're here. So haven't so it can't be burdensome. It's been expected. I think I think number one's the way to go. I'll make make that motion.

1:55:04Well we we owe it to everybody that that does that job that um may not need to be worried with what Tallahassee's doing let this board take the hits with them. That way they can keep doing what they need to do to keep our folks safe and healthy.

1:55:21Madam Chairman Mariano Second Motion second and I and I think just to add a little more comment I think um We've got an appropriation share Senator up there, that would probably be very w very helpful in trying to get this amended to make sure that it doesn't hurt us but it does come up.

1:55:37Okay, so uh is that do you need a uh motion or just board direction? Do you

1:55:42You might a you've got a motion in a second, you might as well take a vote at that point. All in favor?

1:55:46Aye.

1:55:49I hope you defend that that car wash ordinance with the same vigor.

1:55:55Otherwise you're coming with me uh in the world and you'll understand.

1:56:00We have we have some good arguments ready to go, so we're

1:56:04And are and we we escaped this with the parks fee? We are out of the

1:56:08parking pack fee was prior to August of last year.

1:56:11Okay. Um you know we talked about a law enforcement or whatever we're calling it, impact fee.

1:56:17Well let me be clear. Uh we talked about the stuff you've already adopted, but even stuff that you have pending. It's potentially subject to 180. So you got you talked about the comp plan update. Um we've got, you know, other regulations that are kind of way making their way backyard chickens. covers over docs. I mean any amendment we do to our land development regulations, I guess there's somebody that could argue that it's more restrictive or burdensome. So

1:56:44We we I Chair, I think we just need to keep moving forward and governing ourselves and what do what we were elected to do and what the people expect us the decisions that we need to make and then if someone challenges it they challenge it.

1:56:55Yeah and we'll tell 'em why.

1:56:57Yep.

1:56:57I agree. We will let it be known why we are being challenged.

1:57:01Okay.

1:57:04The finesse point of the of the law really is We don't know that just by exempting Stuff that was damaged is going to be good enough.

1:57:15I know, but we're willing to test the waters.

1:57:17But so there there might be somebody who challenges any of these regulations based on the fact that It was a declared state of emergency and you can't you can't do ever anything. But we're willing to take

1:57:32We were a county that waived our building fees, paid for our houses to be demolished. We went over and above, so I feel we're in a good good place.

1:57:45I

1:57:45I I and I think when we have our our legislative discussions we're gonna talk about counties who Who are finish finishing or just finished their comp plan revisions in this year should be exempt from some of that stuff. So I had discussions with our legislators at Lutz.

1:58:04Well what I'm hearing the board say is you want to just keep doing business as usual and we'll litigate it.

1:58:09Yeah. We don't want you guys to stop working on L D Cs or you know, tee everything up and we are gonna Keep moving on.

1:58:17It does seem to be a conflict when they tell you that you

1:58:20have to

1:58:20do an e an evaluation and appraisal report and then say you can't do anything with it.

1:58:25You know what? We could we could ask our development community if they want no more comprehensive plan changes for the next two years.

1:58:33Well interestingly it does exempt privately initiated plan amendments. That's the one thing that is exempt.

1:58:42all right. Thank you for the direction.

1:58:44Thank

1:58:44you.