Impact fees

A tale of two cities

Impact fees continue to be a hot topic around SW Florida and this month two communities have taken remarkably different positions regarding these fees.

In the Charlotte County community of Northport, the City Commission agreed to up the road-impact fee 27 percent to help fund new highway growth. In an interesting twist, even many local builders have spoken up in favor of increasing road-impact fees. Builder’s motivation for supporting impact increases was to block an alternative approach which called for a building moratorium in certain parts of the city where basic services are not in place.

Meanwhile in Lee County, the Ft. Myers City Council voted to continue the in-place sewer and water impact fee waiver until 2011. This waiver was established 1992 as a way to encourage residential development in Ft. Myers. With the explosive growth now occurring throughout the Ft. Myers, one has to question whether this waiver is necessary. Fear of lawsuits from developers with projects on the drawing board was cited as a factor in continuing with the waiver.

North Port’s first step [Sun-Herald]
Critics question impact fee waiver [News-Press]