by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The 2006 legislative session is underway and Susan Stewart of the Duval Delegation Office has a 250-page, two-sided document filled with bills that Florida’s legislators will pore over during the next several weeks.
Of those hundreds of bills, a handful pertain directly to the real estate industry and may ultimately affect both Realtors and builders. Locally, Greg Matovina of the Northeast Florida Builders Association and Nancy Garcia of the Northeast Florida Association of Realtors are charged with keeping tabs on those bills and monitoring their success or failure. The recent virtual melding of the builder and real estate industry into one cohesive — and powerful — entity has created a scenario where many laws affect both builders and Realtors.
“We have two main areas we are focusing on this session,” said Matovina, the chair of government affairs for NEFBA. “One relates to impact fees and the other involves inclusionary zoning.”
Locally, three of the four counties that make up Northeast Florida — St. Johns, Clay and Nassau — charge builders with impact fees, funds used to help supplement local schools and infrastructure. Duval County doesn’t charge impact fees and Matovina says it will be a long time before that happens.
“Duval County does a good job of managing its money,” he said. “There’s a strong commercial tax base, so there’s more money to go around.”
That’s not necessarily true in other counties, particularly in Central and South Florida where impact fees have been instituted. The problem, according to Matovina, will come if legislation codifying those fees is enacted. Matovina says the new law would, in essence, enable cities or counties to twice tax a new home buyer. In counties that already have impact fees, the law would also require higher ad valorem taxes that would go to the local school system.
“What we are advocating as an association is in calculating the amount of taxes that are figured into the purchase, we would like those impact fees deducted over the life of the school or for however long the homeowner pays taxes,” said Matovina, who was president of NEFBA in 2004. “The money in year 30 isn’t worth as much as the money in year one.”
NEFBA is also paying close attention to an inclusionary zoning bill that would require developers to build a certain percentage of homes within a development and sell them at a lower price that the rest of the development.
Matovina says the law is designed to force developers into building more affordable housing. However, those cheaper — and smaller — homes would come at the expense of the other buyers in the development.
For example, if a developer is going to build 200 homes with an average price of $200,000, the law may require him to make sure 25 of those homes only cost $100,000. Matovina says the developer will simply pass along the cost to the other 175 home buyers, who may end up paying $225,000 to make up the difference. The real issue would come three years down the road when the $100,000 home buyers — who have to qualify first — have the option of selling.
“They will make a windfall when they sell,” said Matovina, adding the law won’t be fair to the other homeowners or the middle income buyer who won’t be eligible for the cheaper homes or may not be able to afford the more expensive homes.
“The real answer to affordable housing is the programs that take two mills of the seven from the transfer tax for the affordable housing trust fund,” said Matovina, who will go to Tallahassee in April for a couple of days. “We will go and target our time to a few key legislators. Lobbying legislators from Central and South Florida is not very effective.”
Garcia said the real estate industry is focused this session on assuring that every home buyer is able to afford and purchase homeowner’s insurance. The recent glut of hurricanes in the state of Florida has made getting and keeping homeowner’s insurance difficult, especially in areas of the state prone to tropical activity.
Another objective this year is to get an official home ownership specialty license plate approved. Garcia says all revenue generated by the sale of the plates would go to the affordable housing trust fund.
“We are pushing for full funding of the trust fund,” said Garcia, who is planning to spend a full day in the capital in April meeting with members of the Duval Delegation. “2002 and 2003 were the last two years the trust fund was fully funded. The next year it was capped at $193 million and last year the fund was $443 million.”
One bill that Garcia and the Realtors plan to oppose contains language that would raise the document stamp fees.
“The state of Florida already has the highest closing costs in the country. We don’t support raising those costs,” said Garcia, pointing out that the concept of affordable housing is one that is quickly becoming a misnomer. “From 2002 to 2005, the median price of a home went up 77 percent, while the average income has only gone up 1.4 percent. Adding to the local doc stamp fee adds to the price of a home.”
Garcia said the bill, if passed, could create a scenario where homeowners are taxed two and three times for the same thing.
“It would give all local governments the ability to charge doc stamps and we don’t support that,” said Garcia. “All local governments includes the county, the school board and here, if you live somewhere like Neptune Beach. You could get taxed by all three for the same thing.”