By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

The Osceola County Commission Monday unanimously agreed to direct county staff to draft an ordinance establishing a yearlong moratorium on all non-residential transportation impact fees beginning Feb. 1.

The moratorium, according to county staff projections, would cost the county about $3 million in lost revenue. The purpose of the moratorium would be to stimulate new business construction or building expansions. Impact fees for the 2009-10 fiscal year versus the prior year fell 63 percent, with a 76 percent drop recorded over the last two fiscal years, staff said.

Commissioners, who expect to approve the ordinance in January, also considered other options, including: reducing impact fees by 50 percent for non-residential new construction; either waiving or cutting in half fees on all  new construction (including residential); and waiving or reducing fees for certain qualified targeted industries deemed economic development projects. A moratorium on all construction, staff reported, would cost $4 million.

Joe Johnston, county customer resources manager, said a number of other Florida counties have already cut transportation impact fees but that no “resounding success on the commercial end,” as far as spurring new construction, had been reported.

Johnson also said the goal of the moratorium is to reduce unemployment, grow the property tax roll and generate more business activity overall.

Before the vote on the issue, Commissioner John Quiñones said the county had to proceed with caution over waiving impact fees for certain sectors in order to avoid giving one business group a competitive advantage over another. Quiñones, like other commissioners, showed little or no support for waiving impact fees for residential construction.

“We also need direction on where to get the money to cover the shortfall from this,” Quiñones said.

Commissioner Frank Attkisson said he would support the moratorium for non-residential construction only as a way to help generate higher paying jobs in the county.

“Do impact fees represent a hindrance to economic development in Osceola County?” Attkisson asked rhetorically. “It is clear they do.”

Joe Volpe, representing the Osceola County chapter of the Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando, said that if impact fees are to be waived or reduced, then it should be done equally for all business sectors, including residential construction.

“It costs more to build a single-family home now than what we can sell it for,” Volpe said, adding that very little is being collected now in transportation impact fees from the residential sector, simply because there is little building going on.

Angel de la Portilla, president of Central Florida Strategies, a government consulting firm, said the decision to enact a moratorium on impact fees is a “giant step toward helping revitalize the local economy.”

“There is no better economic development tool than to create an environment with low taxes and fees where businesses can grow and create jobs and for their efforts, the commissioners should be applauded,” de la Portilla said.

Mike Horner, president of the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce, before the vote presented commissioners with a resolution from the business group supporting reduced impact fees.

The resolution mentioned an unemployment rate for the county of more than 12 percent, one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, the county has the highest overall impact fees of any county in Central Florida and that the high impact fees are a deterrent for businesses locating in the county.

County staff, in preparation for a Jan. 24 commission workshop, also will be engaging in a comprehensive review of the transportation impact fee and county policies that drive transportation spending. Among the issues to be considered are mass transit, development standards, overall county transportation system needs and other funding sources.