Submitted by Susan Hardee Steger
November 17, 2014 4:15 p.m.
The City of Fernandina Beach amended its agenda to consider approving an Impact Fee Settlement Agreement during its November 18, regular meeting. In order to add an item to the agenda, 24 hours notice must be given. The amendment to the agenda follows.
STIPULATION AND AGREEMENT OF SETTLEMENT – RESOLUTION 2014-165 APPROVING A STIPULATION AND AGREEMENT OF SETTLEMENT IN THE WATER IMPACT FEE CASES; AUTHORIZING EXECUTION; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE. Synopsis: Approves the Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement in the cases of Judicial Circuit Court Case No.: 11-426-CA and Florida Supreme Court Case No.: SC14-299.
At this time, a copy of the settlement agreement is not available for public review. When a copy is available, we will update our site and provide a link.
This is going to be a whopper. Once this is settled, the Commissioners should have serious discussion on the merits of these impact fees. They stifle small business owners from considering setting up shop in our town. Most people going into a small operation are working on a short supply of capital. I know my wife and I were back in the 80s, We had a small gift shop by Watkin Glen n.y. If impact fees were imposed we could not have handled it, with all the other costs,going into business. Let’m start-up.drop the impact fees.
Steve, while I agree that impact fees should be reviewed on a regular basis, I do believe there is a valid place for reasonable impact fees. New development places pressure on the infrastructure of the community and while the incremental impact of a single development may not be considered substantial, at some point the capacity of the infrastructure is used up and there must be a substantial capital expenditure to increase the capacity to handle that expansion. In my opinion it would be unfair to saddle the development that caused the tipping point the cost of the upgrade because the need for the upgrade was created by the previous developments. If my understanding of the water impact fee case is correct, there was already such a large amount of unused capacity in the water system when it was purchased and was thought to be sufficient for quite some time, the plantiffs argued that there should have not been an impact fee. That is not the same for parks and recreation, fire & safety, stormwater, etc.