Gwinnett Impact Fees

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 Tens of millions of dollars have been lost ever since the previous Chairman rescinded Gwinnett’s first impact fee program in the early 1990’s. There is no reason why the current Commission should delay a day longer.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.