By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
When thinking about Clay County infrastructure, Wayne Bolla recalled a documentary he’d seen on prairie dog communities.
They just grow and grow, until all of a sudden they start dying off and disappearing, he said.
“I think if we don’t get our infrastructure right, one of these days that could be what we might be getting into,” said Bolla, Clay County commissioner for District 2.
Getting it right could be tough, though.
A study to figure out which new transportation taxes are needed to pay for county roadway expansions gave a disappointing answer: All of them.
That includes transportation impact fees, something builders are loathe to bring back.
Impact fees are fees governments charge to developers for infrastructure — roads, water and sewer — in support of growth.
Clay County in 2008 passed a transportation impact fee that charged developers $5,814 per single-family home. But the fees were placed in moratorium four months after they went into effect in order to give relief to developers during the recession.
Now without them, there won’t be enough money to pay for the needed road improvements, the study said.
Bolla talked about the study and transportation funding at the April meeting of NEFBA’s Clay Builders Council.
A January study by RS&H whittled down a 10-year transportation projects wish-list by half, to arrive at the 12 the projects most critical to the county.
That work includes widening to four lanes County Road 220 (Doctor’s Inlet Road) and County Road 218 heading west from Middleburg.
It also includes new roads, a road extension and a road widening in the OakLeaf Plantation, Lake Asbury and Brannan Field master-planned areas.
The total cost is $254 million.
The study identified three ways the county could raise the money over 10 years:
• Extend past its 2019 expiration the 1-cent transportation surtax, which is charged as part of the county sales tax. ($182.9 million).
• Add 5 cents to the gas tax ($29.3 million).
• Reinstate transportation impact fees ($63.7 million).
Take out any one of these, and the county comes up short.
Politically, the revenue source most likely to pass will be the sales tax extension, Bolla said.
The fuel tax, which needs either a public referendum to pass or a supermajority vote of commissioners, will be a harder sell.
Impact fees? A non-starter.
“I don’t know if the will is there in the commission to pass it,” Bolla said. “There are several commissioners who are not in favor of them.”
Bolla, though, said he’d personally like to see Clay County consider a mobility fee system.
Mobility fees replace other transportation fees. The system allows the county to incentivize development closer to the urban core and the fees directly correlate to a county transportation improvements plan.
Will it happen in Clay County?
“I don’t know. We haven’t discussed it a lot,” Bolla said.
He’s asked for a presentation on mobility fees so commissioners can get an idea of what such a system might look like locally.
The Clay County Commission in April voted to extend its moratorium on transportation impact fees another six months
At the same time, it committed to a series of July meetings to discuss options for funding road improvements in the growing county.
A recent county-funded transportation study said the impact fees, along with a 1 cent sales tax and 5 cent gas tax would be needed to fund road projects in support of new residential development.
Commissioners voted 5-0 to extend the moratorium, implemented during the recession to bring relief to a weakened building industry, while they continued to discuss options.
County Commission Chair Diane Hutchings said she campaigned against impact fees, but growth was coming one way or another.
She called for setting a series of meetings in July where commissioners could discuss transportation exclusively.