MARION COUNTY BOARD March 24, 2015 OF COUNTY

Transcription

President Elect & V.P.
Debbie Klugger
Center State Construction
Phone: (352) 694-5022
President
Todd Taylor
Florida Source Construction
(352) 512-0177
Immediate Past President
Keith Poole
KAP Design Group
(352) 572-7454
Associate Vice President
Mike Monroe
Acentria Insurance
(352) (352) 390-8993
Secretary
Jackie Suarez
Architectural Artworks
(352) 978-6075
Treasurer
David Harden
American Heritage Land Surveying
Phone: (352) 732-4581
MARION COUNTY BOARD
OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
601 NE 25th Avenue
Ocala, Florida 34471
March 24, 2015
RE: Position Letter on the reinstatement of transportation impact fees in Marion County
Dear Board of County Commissioners,
Having recently received, and after a preliminary review of the draft report prepared by your
transportation impact fee consultant (Tindale Oliver), we wish to communicate and present to
the BCC at Tuesday’s Workshop our position on the report’s findings. We also wish to offer
commentary and counsel on certain components that we have taken exception with.
Before you read on, please be assured that although we have not always agreed on the
concept of transportation impact fees to fund future transportation improvements contemplated
in the County’s 5-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), we have and will continue
to support the goal of assuring that Marion County has adequate levels of service for our
transportation system to meet the current, as well as future needs as our community continues
to grow and prosper as most desirable location to live and work and to raise our families in a
financially stable, healthy area that offers the prospect of offering good paying jobs in a diverse
economy to perpetuate the area’s quality of life.
What we haven’t always agreed on is how best to fund these infrastructure needs in an
equitable manner, so as to fairly distribute the cost of municipal infrastructure among all
stakeholders who truly stand to benefit from such municipal infrastructure improvements.
We stand ready and are prepared to offer our support of Marion County to reach an equitable
solution to the question of identifying the proper funding sources to bring to our community an
affordable future that will not impede our prospects to attract new business and industry to our
county, but also maintain incentives for existing businesses and companies to have good
reason to grow and prosper with us.
Kind regards,
David Harden, Executive Officer
Marion County Building Industry Association
P.O. Box 128 Ocala, Florida 34478 Phone (352) 694-4133 Fax (352) 694-5971 www.mcbia.org
Presented to the Marion County Board of County Commissioners
Transportation Impact Fee Workshop
9:00AM Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Position on the Re-Instatement of Transportation Impact Fees
What are Transportation Impact Fees?
Marion County’s impact fees are charges levied against new development in order to generate
revenue for the express purpose of specific capital improvements of transportation
improvements necessitated by the impact that new development has on the roadway’s level of
service. Impact fees should not be confused with subdivision exactions that require developers
either to "dedicate" land for public use or contribute cash in lieu of land for the purchase of land
or facilities perceived to be necessary by local governments. As a fundamental tool, impact
fees are broader and more flexible than subdivision exactions. Impact fees can be levied on
various types of development, including residential, subdivision, apartment, commercial, and
industrial projects. Unlike developer exactions which may include either or both on-site and offsite infrastructure improvements, transportation impact fees are used to fund the construction
of offsite transportation improvements in order to sufficiently maintain an acceptable level of
service (LOS) to meet the needs of existing as well as the future beneficiaries of such service.
Why is a Transportation Impact Fee necessary?
The fiscal stress confronting our local government, and to a lesser extent state government,
forced many County officials in Florida to find ways to reduce expenditures. Reducing current
service levels is politically difficult because diminished service levels are readily visible to
constituents and are often as contentious as tax increases. One method of limiting expenditure
growth is to reduce spending for infrastructure maintenance. This expedient choice allows local
officials to keep other services at current levels, and the effects of deferring maintenance
spending are not readily or immediately apparent.
For growing communities, impact fees represent a vast store of potential revenue that can be
tapped at less political cost than other sources. This does not mean, however, that impact fees
are always the best or wisest solution for the financing of public infrastructure when taking into
account social equity considerations and the need to maintain long-term community support for
capital spending programs.
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By what authority does Marion County impose Transportation Impact Fees?
Marion County’s authority to impose transportation impact fees was granted by the Florida
Legislature under F.S.163.31801 (the Florida Impact Fee Act), which specifically authorizes
the County’s authority to levy transportation impact fees. The statute is somewhat beneficial for
builders and developers as it helps to establish certainty and transparency in the development
process. This Impact fee statute is but a framework that requires municipalities to follow
prescribed procedures when implementing local impact fee programs.
In 2011, the Florida legislature modified the state’s concurrency regulations to place the
responsibility of meeting a county’s transportation needs to be a component of the County’s
Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Currently, the objective of the Marion County’s land use plan
is as follows:
“Marion County shall establish and maintain minimum level of service standards within the
Comprehensive Plan for key public facilities consistent with §163, FS; identify which facilities
shall be required to be “in place” concurrent with development, known as “concurrency”; and
use the level of service (LOS) standards and concurrency to identify existing and expected
deficiencies to be addressed by the County’s Capital Improvements Element Schedule of
Capital Improvements.”
The County agency empowered with identifying and setting transportation improvement
priorities is Marion County’s Transportation Planning Organization (TPO). This agency is
populated by municipal officials from the County and Cities lying within Marion County, as well
as planning staff within their respective planning agencies. The TPO assembles and submits
its findings (recommendations) to the Marion County Board of County Commissioners for a
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) to meet the expected needs on a “rolling” 5-year
program.
Marion County’s Land Development Code (LDC)
The following are excerpted portions of the Marion County LDC that are presented now to
reinforce the position presented by this opinion.
OBJECTIVE 1.4: The County shall ensure future development and shall bear a
proportionate cost of facility improvements necessitated by the development in order to
maintain adopted LOS Standards.
Policy 1.4.1: The County shall continue to utilize a Transportation Impact Fee Ordinance
in order to assess new development on a pro rata share of the costs required to finance
transportation improvements necessitated by new development.
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Policy 1.5.8: Applications for development orders or permits that fall into one of the
following categories shall be exempt from the concurrency regulations:
a. Vested Development Orders and Permits: vested projects as established by Article 10
of the Marion County Land Development Code shall only be subject to concurrency
review if expansion of the development shall create additional units, density or intensity,
and only the net increase or expansion shall be subject to concurrency review.
b. Applications for development orders or permits which do not increase density or
intensity are exempt from concurrency review, as defined by the Marion County Land
Development Code.
What determines the “cost” of a Transportation Impact Fee?
At various times, the Marion County Board of County Commissioners engage the services of
various transportation consultants, who collect quantification data (including how and to what
extent neighboring counties are imposing impact fees), how much the County is projecting
annually for future growth and, what is estimated as the County’s anticipated cost to fund new
transportation infrastructure.
It is then through use of an industry approved process the consultant develops a series of
analysis to establish impact fee “cost” for an extensive number of land uses (residential,
multifamily, commercial and industrial, etc.) using the factors of expected growth patterns (as
determined by the County’s planning staff) and the anticipated effect (increased trip counts)
such new growth will have on maintaining an acceptable level of service on current
transportation infrastructure. It is important to note that if the existing transportation
infrastructure was already at a marginally acceptable levels of service, any anticipated new
growth would result in a further degradation on those levels of service for transportation
infrastructure, which then becomes the prevailing guide for the County’s Transportation
Planning Organization to quantify the transportation infrastructure required to maintain an
acceptable level of service (including the anticipated additional trip counts generated by
projected new development), which ultimately leads to the basis for the Board of County
Commissioners to set and put into motion a means in collecting a transportation impact fee.
The simplistic idea being that new growth must pay for itself.
How are Transportation Impact Cost funded?
Under the current policies enumerated in the County’s Land Development Code (LDC), the
following were excerpted from the LDC to demonstrate the County’s options for funding
transportation infrastructure:
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Policy 1.3.4: To increase funding for LOS-related capital projects, the County shall
actively pursue regional, state, federal, and private profit/non-profit grant funding. The
County shall identify and evaluate available grant opportunities by facility type and make
annual recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) regarding pursuit
of specific grants.
Policy 1.3.5: To ensure that funding of County road projects is equitable (user oriented
revenue sources), the following list of revenue sources may be used when considering
financing of County road projects:
a. Transportation impact fees;
b. Gas taxes;
c. Local option sales tax;
d. Utility franchise fee;
e. Special districts and/or areas (e.g., Municipal Service Taxing Unit [MSTU], Municipal
Service Benefit Unit [MSBU], Improvement District, Special District, Community
Development District, Community Redevelopment Area, etc);
f. Ad valorem tax;
g. County transportation maintenance fund; and
h. Revenue bonds to be repaid from gas taxes.
Should the County not consider all available options for potential revenue sources as
provided in the LDC, is the burden of then imposing the transportation infrastructure
cost to be only a one-time transportation impact fees a fair proposal?
Although the funding options in Policy 1.3.5 (as shown above) begins with the listing of
transportation impact fees, it is by no means the option of first or last resort. At present, to
meet the funding deficit of new transportation infrastructure cost not funded by gas taxes and
revenue bonds, Marion County’s present consideration is to pass the burden solely unto new
development through collection of impact fees that are levied on an "up-front" or "front-end"
basis, at the time of building permit issuance or subdivision approval.
Again, transportation impact fees must be dedicated solely to a specific public use (new
transportation infrastructure), and may be not be used or comingled with the County’s general
funds derived from other revenue streams.
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What effect will imposing a transportation impact fee have on the economic future of
Marion County if it is the only option used to fund the needs new transportation
infrastructure? Is this a fiscally sound proposal and who really benefits?
The consultant’s draft report (presently being considered by the Marion County Board of
County Commissioners) is fulfilling but a single purpose – to quantify and recommend the
setting of transportation impact fees on all future development. To date, no vetting or
discussion has been presented on the economic impact of adopting the consultant’s
recommended impact fees, and the ensuing effect such fees will have on the county’s future
economic growth.
The collective concern of the community is that should Marion County impose impact fees that
are not proportionate in nature to other counties in this regional, then the proposed impact fees
will act as a disincentive to attract new businesses and new industries, which will likely elect to
look elsewhere to a more “accommodating” locale. Likewise, exorbitant impact fees will be a
deterrent on future expansion and growth in our existing businesses and industries that will
likewise view excessive transportation impact fees as a disincentive to make an investment for
expansion of its goods and services, as well as the new jobs that would accompany such
growth.
Both private and public interest here in Marion County have worked in unison to diligently
develop and implement a long term strategy for creating a better climate in which to attract and
promote local economic growth (including higher paying jobs) all being in an effort to
strengthen our economic future while building a stronger tax base for ad valorem revenue.
Needless to say, the gain of new (and higher paying) jobs in Marion County will offer more
opportunity to see a growth of our local construction industry which has for the past eight years
suffered tremendously from the effects of the Great Recession that started in 2007.
Obviously, any astute stakeholder, including trade groups, businesses owners and residents
alike would not dispute the merits of assuring that as a community we must work together to
achieve the overall goal of having adequate transportation infrastructure to meet the present
and future need of our community.
However, it should be on an equitable basis where all benefitting users contribute
proportionately.
A disconcerting fact is that if adopted as presently recommended by the consultant, all of the
contemplated transportation improvements (except for limited revenue derived from gas taxes
and restrictive municipal bonding) will solely rely on transportation impact fees paid by new
development.
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Furthermore, although not discussed and certainly not quantified by any measure in the
consultant’s report, the stakeholders raise the question that a significant portion of the
proposed cost for new transportation infrastructure that is to be paid by the proposed impact
fees, will be used to cure long term LOS deficiencies due to deferred maintenance of the
County’s transportation system. If this be the case, then this is further justification on why the
proposed transportation impact fee structure is inequitable, as it places the full burden of the
infrastructure cost (including deferred maintenance) only upon new development and does not
purport an equitable fair share with existing users who prospectively will also benefit from new
transportation infrastructure.
This position is supported by the Concurrency provisions contained in FS 163.3180, which in
part reads as follows:
If any road is determined to be transportation deficient without the project traffic under review, the
costs of correcting that deficiency shall be removed from the project’s proportionate-share calculation
and the necessary transportation improvements to correct that deficiency shall be considered to be in
place for purposes of the proportionate-share calculation.
On this basis, sound reasoning indicates that with proper procedures, periodic road
maintenance would have reduced the diminished levels of service that have now fallen to a
deficiency due to antiquated roadway designs, insufficient or outdated signalization, lack of
adequate pedestrian crosswalks, non-existent pedestrian/bicycle lanes, etc.
Accordingly, we urge the Marion County Board of County Commissioners to take the right
course by:
1. Proportionately allocate a fair share contribution by all users of a proposed transportation
project, which will include allocated cost to existing and future improvement users alike;
2. Broaden the funding approach (including funding sources) in meeting the revenue
requirements deemed necessary for its transportation improvement plan so as to be in
compliance with legislative directives, including the County’s own land development code,
by exhausting all avenues of funding opportunity.
3. Meet the recommendations of item 1 and 2 above by utilizing financing options first, so as
to minimize a negative impact or create the perception that development would be better
served if placed somewhere other than here in Marion County.
The third observation made above is of paramount concern as our community has often
chosen a path of least resistance, with results that should have taught us a lesson that “those
who don’t remember history are forced to relive it”.
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It is our hope that your continued efforts to structure a workable proposal will also work to
minimize the negative aspect of an egregious fee that if imposed without a justifiable and
equitable premise will only serve to weaken our community’s continuing efforts to become a
prosperous and sustaining community, with a vibrant economy that will be seen as an
attractive and financially desirable place to work and live.
We thank you for your continued efforts to address this matter in a responsible manner.
For further information contact:
David M. Harden, Executive Officer
3288 SW 74th Avenue
Ocala, FL 34474
352-694-4133 (office) 352-694-5971 (fax)
Page 7

MARION COUNTY BOARD March 24, 2015 OF COUNTY

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