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LaGrange City Council has had the first of several hearings on proposed impact fees that could pay for nearly all of the projected $59.4 million in capital costs for roads, and police and fire services that will be needed over the next 21 years to maintain current levels of service. Developers would pay the fees when they get building permit. Without impact fees, city residents would have to pay the equivalent of 4.3 mills in property taxes to finance public facilities that will be needed to accommodate growth.
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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
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 You can begin with Wayne Hill and the pro-growth Commissioners who, upon taking office in the early ’90s rescinded the county’s newly-enacted impact fee ordinance, thereby denying the county hundreds of millions in non-tax revenue.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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