A coalition of builders, developers and business leaders were successful last month in their efforts to hold off a 67 percent impact fee increase in Sarasota County.
County Commissioners agreed to postpone their vote on the fee hike, which would increase impact fees for a single-family home from $10,637 to $17,741, until late January.
The Sarasota County Coalition of Business Associations, which includes the HBA of Sarasota County, told commissioners the new impact fee would unfairly charge developers for state road construction projects. The coalition also said the new fee placed too much of the burden for rebuilding aging infrastructure on developers.
Deborah Martohue, a St. Petersburg attorney retained by the business coalition, said the impact fee hike could be challenged in court. She faulted Duncan Associates, a Texas firm the county hired to study its impact fees, saying they place too much emphasis on the fact other Florida counties have raised impact fees.
“A comparative analysis to other jurisdictions is fraught with many, many pitfalls,” Martohue said. “It’s just simply not persuasive from a legal point of view to say everyone else is doing it.”