Allowing new businesses to pay Osceola County transportation impact fees over a five-year period, as proposed, would be helpful to our struggling local economy. In that way, new businesses would be able to spread these current upfront costs over a number of years. Plus, we suspect having a time-payment plan available would make our county more competitive in attracting jobs.

The cash flow interruption to the county with time payments of impact fees, we believe, would be manageable, especially since 20 percent of the fees would have to be paid upfront and then interest would be charged on the amount still owed. Also, county liens would be placed on the property and removed only when the full amount owed would be paid.

We also agree with commissioners – as they said at their quarterly retreat Monday – that the county should look at whether the method for determining its transportation impact fee is still appropriate in slow-growth periods.

It’s important to note something that has become apparent over the last few years: Expecting transportation impact fees alone to pay for dealing with the traffic congestion brought on by both residential and commercial growth is unrealistic.

As local homebuilder association spokesman Joe Volpe said recently, transportation projects are being subsidized from the general fund (through property taxes) and yet some roads where growth has been the strongest are still failing in terms of service.

Here is another issue for county officials to consider: If voters in November approve the 1 percent sales surtax for new roads and road expansions, then county officials will have to determine whether this added tax revenue reduces the need for transportation impact fees. However, if we shift the burden to build new roads onto all residents in the county through a sales tax, then the idea of having new development pay for itself is no longer valid.

A new push for a real estate transaction fee for existing property as a way to help pay for growth also may be forthcoming, given that transportation impact fees haven’t worked out too well and the need for revenue to build new roads or expand old ones won't go away anytime soon. However, the problem is that buyers of existing property during the recent boom probably paid for growth anyway through inflated prices. Having a transaction fee in the future might mean these buyers paying for growth twice.