School board votes to reinstate impact fees

Developers from Sarasota and Manatee counties pleaded with Sarasota County School Board members not to reinstate impact fees on new homes Tuesday night, saying the fees would affect affordable housing supplies and cut jobs.

In spite of that, the board voted to reinstate fees at 25.9% of the amount they would have been legally justifiable in levying, according to Planning Director Kathie Ebaugh.

New single family homes will carry a fee of $2,032, multi-family homes will pay $561 and mobile homes will pay $188, approximating the fees levied in 2010 before the moratorium. Those fees began in 2004 and were suspended in 2010, with that suspension set to expire in December.

Impact fees are one-time fees levied on certain new homes to pay for the burden additional households place on the county's school system.

Fees will not apply to affordable housing or certain communities that are not expected to place additional burdens on schools, such as senior-only developments, according to school board Chairman Frank Kovach.

Kovach, along with Bridget Ziegler, voted against the reinstatement.

The Sarasota County Board of Commissioners has the final say on school board's recommendation to reinstate fees, and will consider the matter on Dec. 8.

Several developers, including David Hunihan, operations manager at Emerald Homes, suggested developers were unlikely to absorb the cost.

“This will be passed on to homeowners,” Hunihan said.

Attorney Dan Lobeck said the approved fees didn’t go far enough. Even if the school board reinstated impact fees at 100% percent of the legally justifiable amounts, he said, more than half of the money to pay for new schools that will be needed to accommodate projected growth would have to come from loans and taxes.

He accused some school board members of acting on behalf of developers instead of students.

“It’s not right,” he said. “It’s scandalous — beyond scandalous — that the developers have bought themselves a school board.”

The consensus among developers seemed to be that projected need given in a study commissioned by the school board, done by Oliver Tindale, is exaggerated. That study estimates the county will need four elementary schools, one middle school and one high school before 2025 at a projected cost of $363 million.

The impact fees will generate, based on growth projections, roughly $40 million in the next 10 years.

Steve Tindale, CEO of Oliver Tindale, said in response to developers’ challenges to the methodology and results of the study, “It’s crucial to understand that it’s a consumption-based fee and not based on needs. The fee is constant and if you don’t have growth, guess what happens to revenues? You don’t get them.”

Few people spoke in favor of the fees, but Al Stonehouse, an Englewood resident, said, “Growth pays for growth. I’m sorry, builders, but you’re going to have to pay.”