Posted on December 13th, 2007 by Bob Griggs
It has been over nine months since an advisory panel recommended that Gwinnett County move forward with an impact fee program. Kowtowing to the local development community, Chairman Charles Bannister has to date refused to even give the panel’s report a fair and public hearing.
COVINGTON - Newton County claimed victory in Superior Court Monday in the prolonged battle over its impact fee ordinance with local and state home builders associations.
Superior Court Judge Horace Johnson Jr. dismissed a lawsuit filed against the county by the Newton County Home Builders Association and the Home Builders Association of Georgia, saying the associations failed to meet burden of proof.
The ruling means that the county will move forward with spending the $6.5 million in fees collected so far, said Newton County’s Executive Officer, John Middleton.
County wins impact fee battle
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Filed under: In the News
Posted on November 29th, 2007 by Bob Griggs
There is plenty of blame to go around for Gwinnett County’s current financial crisis. You can begin with Wayne Hill and the pro-growth Commissioners who, upon taking office in the early ’90s rescinded the county’s newly-enacted impact fee ordinance, thereby denying the county hundreds of millions in non-tax revenue. You can blame the current Commission Chairman for keeping the fees “off the table” solely to please the development community, despite a positive recommendation by a citizen advisory panel.
You can fault Gwinnett’s state legislators for ignorantly approving tax digest-depressing measures like the value offset exemption, never understanding how the politically-popular tax breaks will ultimately result in higher tax rates for everybody.
You can impute equal fault to the current Commission for failing to capture non-tax revenue sources like impact fees; for failing to aggressively respond to the ever-increasing drain on public services by ineligible recipients; and for continuing to adopt deficient tax rates despite the resultant depletion of the county’s financial resources.
But assigning blame serves no purpose unless the problems, once identified, are resolved. County leadership should immediately take the following steps: Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on October 17th, 2007 by Bob Griggs
On 10/16, the County Commission received the results of a report by the UGA Carl Vinson Institute of Government. The study recommended that a citizen panel be created to accept ethics complaints against county officials.
The AJC article gave no indication that any additional action on this issue is being contemplated by the Commission.
Ethics reform will most likely join impact fees on the growing pile of issues on which the Commission is currently dragging its feet.
In mid-April, a citizen advisory committee completed a study of impact fees. After a year of study, the group recommended that the county charge the fees to offset the cost of infrastructure to serve new growth. To date, the committee has not even been asked to formally present its report to the Commission; much less has the Commission acted on any of the committee’s recommendations.
Most likely, the upcoming Commission elections (including a contentious race for Chairman) have caused a degree of `political paralysis.` This makes no sense to me– surveys show that impact fees are very popular with the voters– except that they are unpopular with the development community, which funnels big bucks into the candidates’ campaign coffers.
Don’t let the developers buy time on such an important issue. Tens of millions of dollars have been lost ever since the previous Chairman rescinded Gwinnett’s first impact fee program in the early 1990’s. There is no reason why the current Commission should delay a day longer.
Contact the County Commission today and demand that they take action on impact fees by sending a single email to commishes@aboutgwinnett.com.
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on September 7th, 2007 by Bob Griggs
[An Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial by Maureen Downey]
In two weeks, Oregon school districts will be able to levy a construction tax on new development to help defray the cost of building and improving schools. Oregon’s new law will place the state among the 20 or so that have realized that the property taxes generated by new subdivisions don’t cover the expense of expanding schools to accommodate newcomers.
Those states permit local communities to impose special construction taxes or, in the case of eight states, impact fees, which are a one-time payment by real estate developers and home buyers. Despite the urgency of overcrowding in many metro school districts, the Georgia General Assembly has refused to consider school impact fees. Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
At the Ebony Society candidates’ forum on June 1, responding to a question about impact fees, District 4 County Commissioner (and candidate for reelection) Kevin Kenerly replied (paraphrased):
“If Gwinnett had had impact fees when Hamilton Mill was built, we would have had to write the developer a check for $500,000 for all the stuff he did out there.”
Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
One question often asked about impact fees is, “Will charging them cause my tax bill to decrease?”
The short answer is– they can. The following example is intended to provide a generalized overview of the potential value of an impact fee program solely in terms of the benefit to the taxpayer where the fee replaces general funds for the construction of the selected public facilities. ~ Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
Newspapers serve an important, and often critical, purpose in society, especially when it comes to keeping an eye on government and politicians. But newspaper reporters aren’t all-knowing and they’re not infallible. They also have limited space to fill and other considerations which may prevent them from telling the whole story, or from adequately analyzing the information on which they are reporting.
Over the coming months, the activities of the Impact Fee Study and Advisory Committee will be in the news; hopefully, quite often. But the information will not always be complete and unbiased. Over the coming months, I plan to expose the “bunk” published about impact fees and adequately “de-bunk” it. Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
(Originally published 12/21/05)
Dennis Billew, President of Development Consultants Group and pro-development editorialist in the company newsletter at DIRT-e.info, is described by his co-workers as “Gwinnett’s Hardest-Working-for-the-Longest-Time, Highly Influential, Best-Informed Development Consultant, and All-Around Nice Guy”.
Dennis (a really nice guy in person) has written on more than one occasion on the topic of impact fees and why they would spell the end of Gwinnett County as we know it today. If today’s literary effort is an indication of the best that the development community can do, the meetings of the soon-to-be-constituted Development Impact Fee Advisory Committee are going to be rather anti-climactic and boring. Read more…
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Filed under: Commentary
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
“The timing is not right for impact fees (too early, too late or conflict with other issues).” Read more…
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Filed under: Myths & Misconceptions
Posted on March 3rd, 2007 by Bob Griggs
“An impact fee program costs too much, or is too difficult to administer.” Read more…
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Filed under: Myths & Misconceptions
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