by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Roads, or the lack thereof, is one of the major problems in Clay County.
“We have more people than we have roads for,” said Roger Day, chairman of the Clay County Builders Association.
The task of extending the roads to accommodate the growing population in Clay County is going to cost someone, but it has yet to be determined who.
The Clay County Commissioners have proposed an impact fee to pay for the roads, but Day doesn’t like that idea.
“It wouldn’t be fair for the new people coming in to pay for roads because the problems are already here,” said Day.
Impact fees are paid when the builder gets his building permit. It is a part of the cost of the house which will be paid by homeowner in the long run because the charge will be figured into the price of the new home.
“We pay it, but then we have to add it to the cost of the house,” said Day.
According to Day, the Clay County Commissioner is proposing a $2,000 impact fee for roads.
“We already have a $2,000 impact fee for schools,” he said. “They are talking about adding another $250 impact fee for parks, which would be a total of $4,250 in impact fees for each new home.”
Day said the roads should be paid for by the existing taxpayers in Clay County.
“We don’t want the impact fees,” said Day. “We want the roads. We think it would be more fair to be charging everyone who is using the roads, not just new residents moving in.”
Day said they have not been keeping up with the building of the roads in Clay County and each year they get further and further behind.
“It wouldn’t be fair to charge people who aren’t even here to pay for roads that should have been put in 15 or 20 years ago,” said Day.
A decision will be made and impact fees will be enacted later this summer.
The reason Day became the chair of the Builder’s Council is so he could get more involved in local government and fight issues like impact fees.
“Our goal is to get more involved with the County Commissioners,” said Day. “We want to be involved with them and help in the planning to make sure that the growth goes as planned. We are very short of schools here as well. That is another major issue that we have.”
Day said that the Clay County Builders Council had gotten away from involving itself with the government.
“We just got busy and had gotten a little complacent,” he said.
Other problems that developers and builders are facing is the availability of workers.
“There is a lot of construction going on and there aren’t as many people going into the trade as there used to be,” Day said. “It is an ongoing problem. The economy is so good that if you can get a job in the air conditioning or get a job working out in the sun with a hammer, your choice is going to be to take the air conditioning job.”
Day did say that Clay County is not as in bad a shape as other areas when it comes to the labor pool.
“We have a better base in Clay County and people like to work here, so we are not in as bad a shape as many are,” he said.
Although there is a lack of roads, the availability of other infrastructure has not been a problem.
“Water and sewer are pretty well available and The Clay County Utility Authority has been adding in or putting in whatever is needed as it is needed,” he said. “They are keeping up with that.”
Most of the county is at a moratorium right now because of not having adequate roads. He said builders cannot get permits to build new subdivisions except in certain areas.
As far as development is concerned, Day said there is not a lot new coming in, except for major developments like Oak Leaf Plantation and new commercial and residential projects in the Branan Field-Chaffee Road area.
Day said he doesn’t see any new major developments in the Fleming Island area, except for maybe a few 50-100 lot subdivisions. The land just isn’t there for anymore large developments.
“Right now the major areas of development is the Fleming Island area going south to Green Cove Springs,” he said. “There is not a lot of work along the Blanding Boulevard corridor, except for a few odds and ends. Branan Field-Chaffee Road is where most of the development is right now.”
Some developments on Fleming Island are completely built out and yet others still have a lot of land to build on yet.
“Harbor Island is getting pretty close to built out and so is Pace Island,” said Day. “Eagle Harbor has about another 500 homes to build and Fleming Island Plantation has quite a bit of land left in there.”
Day said once the residential developments started taking shape on Fleming Island, the retail and restaurants followed soon after.
“We have about 20 restaurants here,” he said. “It has become quite a Mecca, and it’s busy. It’s gotten to be a new shopping destination for Clay County.”
Day said that Clay County is a bedroom community where a lot of people live, but leave to go work in Jacksonville.
“That is probably one of the biggest obstacles that we have as far as our tax base,” he said. “With people going to work in Jacksonville, their office building is there which means their office building is paying taxes in Jacksonville. They aren’t paying for schools because no one from our county is going to school there. If we had the businesses here then we would have the tax base which would be helpful to Clay County. If we had more commercial, more office buildings and more distributions centers it would help. That is one of the goals of Clay County is to get more jobs here.”
Day said more jobs would also help the congestion problem.
“We would have people going both directions on the roads,” he said. “Right now, in the morning everyone gets in the car and leaves and in the afternoon everyone comes home. It would be helpful to get people working here rather than everyone leaving.”