I will add more from my notes tomorrow, but after listening to public input for more than two hours, the Lake County (FL) Board of Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to suspend transportation impact fees "on everything" which includes both residential and commercial construction, for 12 months. The dissenting vote was from Commissioner Elaine Renick, who wanted the existing fee to be reduced, rather that a complete suspension.
Based upon all the input, which was 99% FOR suspending the tax, some speakers also said that it takes too long for design work on many projects to have the property completed within 12 months, so there seemed to be a consensus from the Board that it could be extended after reviewing the situation in 12 months.
Efforts to roll back the suspension to existing projects was partly handled when Commissioner Jennifer Hill said four of the 7 applicable existing projects with deferral agreements had agreements that (I think) would apply to those four.
Staff said the "lost" revenue based upon historical data would be around $2.3-3-million, and one speaker said that was the cost of one mile of road, so wasn't that significant compared to the possible positive effect on motivating new construction in Lake County.
There were a number of thoughtful ideas presented during public input, and I will add more tomorrow morning. I will also add PICTURES of Board member Linda Stewart again "dissing" speakers Don Magruder and Dan Roebuck, who both spoke in favor of the suspension of Impact fees. Stewart turned to one side and purposely did not look at them when they talked.
You can also see some details at Jimmy Conner's blog entry for March 2 HERE.
Attached is the official County press release on this vote:
Download 2010-03-02-transportation impact release
HERE is the Orlando Sentinel article on the Impact Fee vote published March 3, 2010HERE is the Daily Commercial article on the Impact Fee vote published March 3, 2010
VJ
