The process of implementing impact fees in Jones County continued last week with a work session for the commissioners prior to their regular meeting.

Bill Ross III of Ross and Associates, the firm hired in February of 2007 to perform an impact fee feasibility study for Jones County, presented board members with a revised capital improvements element draft at their Jan. 8 meeting. The capital improvements element lists future needs projected through 2030 that are eligible for funding with impact fees.

Ross explained different ways to use impact fees, such as to repay short-term loans for capital improvements, and Commissioner Larry Childs agreed the fees could be used as a funding source.

Commissioner Bert Liston asked Ross if implementing impact fees would slow growth, and Ross said it could if the fees were too high.

“It’s a policy issue. The fees must be adopted at a level that won’t have that effect,” Ross explained. “In a slow housing market, impact fees slow down, and it takes longer to fund a project. But that’s okay because, when growth slows, you don’t need the project as quickly.”



Ross went on to say that an impact fee is a small percentage of the price of a new home, and many other factors motivate the purchase of a home.

“Developers and home builders are affected by impact fees, but they are going to recoup their costs. The housing industry adjusts quickly, and bigger businesses absorb the fee easier. In implementing the fee, we need to be sensitive to that effect.”

Part of the process for adopting impact fees is the appointment of the advisory committee. By law, at least 40 percent of the committee members must be from the development community.

Ross told the commissioners their next step is to advertise a public hearing to discuss impact fees, and he will meet with impact fee advisory committee members to formulate their statement to the commissioners.

Ross said the public hearings and the advisory committee are important.

“We need their input,” he stated.

Commissioners will vote to submit the CIE to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs after the public hearing, and the state has 60 days to review the document. The board will hold two more public hearings before adopting the CIE and impact fee ordinance as an amendment to Jones County’s Comprehensive Plan. When impact fees are adopted, all existing structures receive a credit as if the fee had been paid.

“You don’t receive the last dollar of impact fees until the last person moves here,” Ross commented.

He estimated the soonest the fees could be adopted is mid-April.

One of the last pages of the CIE contains an exemption policy to allow for the reduction or elimination of the impact fee for retail trade or industrial development projects offering extraordinary benefits to the community. Realtor John Conn spoke to the commissioners with a different point of view about the exemption.

“When you exempt an industry, property owners make up the difference from the General Fund. The impact fee ends up not being an admission fee to the county but another burden on taxpayers,” Conn said.

By definition, a development impact fee is a fee charged to cover a new development’s impact on infrastructure.

The Georgia Development Impact Fee Act was enacted into law in 1990. According to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs website, the act sets rules for local governments that wish to charge new development for a portion of the additional capital facilities needed to serve it. The provisions of DIFA are specific in order to assure that new development pays no more than its fair share of the costs and that impact fees are used for growth and not to solve existing service deficiencies.

County commissioners previously identified libraries, emergency management, the Sheriff’s Department, and parks and recreation as areas that can be funded with impact fees, and 70 percent of new growth can be paid by the fees.

An estimated total of $14.8 million in local costs will be needed to fund projected capital improvements, including $600,000 for libraries, $7.9 million for emergency management, $2.1 million for the Sheriff’s Department, and $4.2 million for parks and recreation.

Ross said, without impact fees, property taxes would need to increase at the rate of 1.36 mills per year over the next 23 years to keep up with the growth. He said the county’s projects will essentially be the same with or without impact fees. The difference is who will pay for them.