Because no one on the City Council made a motion to vote at their Wednesday, February 2, meeting, the city of Apopka will not absorb Qorvo’s impact fees after the technology conglomerate requested that those costs be reduced.
New residential and commercial developments are charged impact fees for city services to help pay for capital improvements due to growth.
Qorvo will owe the following impact fee costs for a total of $102,773.25 – traffic, $41,616; water, $10,208; and sewer, $50,949.25.
Qorvo, a designer and manufacturer of technology solutions for the defense and wireless communication industries, has offices on South Orange Blossom Trail in Apopka. The company is preparing to expand its facility and create 100 new jobs.
According to City Administrator Glenn Irby, Qorvo did approach the city staff about waiving the impact fees, but the city can’t do this.
“You can’t just set the fees aside. They have to be paid. However, it doesn’t make any difference who pays them,” Irby said.
However, the city can finance Qorvo’s traffic impact fee using the general fund while the water and sewer fees would come from the city’s utility fund, Irby said.
Recently the City Council, in cooperation with Orange County, agreed to assist Qorvo on a tax abatement incentive whereby they would receive real estate rebates over a number of years equal to a maximum of $120,000 or $60,000 each. The state will also participate by granting another $480,000 in incentives.
The economic incentive package will encourage a 33,000 square-foot facility expansion and 100 new jobs at Qorvo, many of them engineering that would pay an average of $84,000 per year.
City Commissioner Doug Bankson said he agreed with Irby and the city staff’s position. City Commissioner Billie Dean said he wanted to go on record and demanded that Qorvo pays the required impact fees.
During the public portion, before the City Council was scheduled to discuss the matter, resident Suzanne Kidd said she agreed with the city’s stance in not waiving the impact fees. She raised the point about how Qorvo would eventually profit from the economic package, and the company already has close to $7 billion worth of assets as well as $1.05 billion in 2016 growth profit.
“This money in impact fees is just a drop in a bucket to them, but to us, it’s a big hit to our revenues,” she said. “Thinking more importantly, long range, if you approve this request, you will set an unfortunate precedent for future corporate demands for similar city giveaways. Not only is this unfair to small and average businesses that have no way of avoiding these fees, but it could also give significant hits to our revenues in the future.”
Read more highlights from the most recent City Council meeting in the Friday, February 3, issue of The Apopka Chief.
