By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
Builders in Nassau County will again start paying for impacts to roads caused by new development.
Transportation impact fees had been suspended in Nassau, pending an updated policy. On Aug. 25, commissioners approved a mobility fee ordinance by a 5-0 vote.
The measure is the final step in replacing a growth management policy that once charged widely different fees to builders and failed to effectively plan for road construction.
In the past, the county charged builders for impacts to roads in two ways. One was a fixed transportation impact fee charged to all developments. The other was a concurrency fee that charged builders to upgrade an adjacent road when their development put it over capacity.
In 2008, Nassau suspended the transportation fee in order to spur commercial development. The county suspended concurrency fees in 2012.
The fatal flaw with concurrency was that most of the time it was free, said Peter King, Nassau County’s director of growth management.
Developers could build along roads until they became overloaded.
“It was a game of musical chairs. They kept taking away the chairs every time someone did a development,” King said. “Then, the last guy would have to pay for everybody.”
The system encouraged urban sprawl, as builders moved into undeveloped areas where the fees wouldn’t be charged.
Developers also had trouble getting concurrency applications approved, said Greg Matovina, speaking on behalf of the Northeast Florida Association of Builders. That’s because a proposed development often impacted Nassau’s main artery, Florida A1A, which as a state road, fell outside the county’s jurisdiction.
“A1A was failing in a couple of spots,” Matovina said. “In general, you were just prohibited from development.”
The new mobility fees are like the old fixed transportation impact fees, with an exception.
The mobility fees are tied to a county mobility, King said. That plan identifies future road projects based on growth patterns. The fees fund those projects and are directly proportional to their estimated construction costs.
The calculated fees differ by type of development and are based on the number of vehicle trips usually generated by and miles usually traveled to get to that type of development.
The plan also splits the county into two zones, one east of Interstate 95 and one west of it, to ensure money is spent in the same area where it is collected.
“Having a mobility plan takes the political element out of which projects we will do,” King said.
Matovina said builders are generally pleased with the approach Nassau County has taken.