Apopka City Council approves new fire and police services impact fees

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At its first meeting of 2017 on Wednesday, January 4, the Apopka City Council voted 5-0 to implement the new fire and police services impact fees and to increase impact fees for parks and recreation. It is the first of two necessary approvals. That vote will come at the January 18 meeting.

The new fees will take effect 90 day from January 18 as state law requires, giving homebuilders a chance to work the higher rates into their selling prices.

Previously, Apopka had no impact fees for fire or police, but did have them for parks and recreation.

Local governments charge impact fees for everything from wastewater to transportation to parks and recreation. The fees are designed to pay for new construction or expansion of capital facilities such as roads and water-treatment plants due to growth.

Here is a breakdown of what the new impact fees would entail:

  • The newly approved fees will add $2,274 to the city’s current impact fee total, which is $9,393 for new houses. The amount of all the city’s new impact fees for new housing construction will be $11,667. That would put the city’s amount of impact fees $1,257 more than the impact fees levied in unincorporated Orange County. The county currently charges $10,410 in impact fees per new residence built.
  • The increased parks and recreation impact fee will be for residential only. Currently, the city’s impact fee for parks and recreation is $241.05 per new house and $50 per hotel/motel room. The hotel/motel impact fee will go away and the new fee for residences will be $1,060, more than quadrupling the fee for new residential construction.
  • The new impact fee for police will be $747 per house. For commercial, institutional buildings and other non-residential buildings, the new impact fee for police will be based on the square footage of the new construction, ranging from a high of $1 per square foot for retail and food services, to 7 cents per square foot for industrial uses.
  • For fire protection, the new impact fee will be $708 per dwelling unit for residential with other new construction ranging from 87 cents per square foot for government, institutional, and hotels, to 7 cents per square foot for industrial uses.

The Apopka Chief will have all the details of the City Council’s vote in the Friday, January 6 edition.