This story originally ran Tuesday in StetNews.org.
The fight between cities and counties over who gets the money developers pay for road work could be decided this year by the Florida Legislature.
Cities back a bill that would give them control of the money that otherwise goes to counties. Counties object.
At stake in Palm Beach County: $20 million a year in developer fees that go to roads.
The bill would let cities use the money for their priorities, which would go beyond road-building to include sidewalks, bike lanes and other alternative modes of transportation.
Counties would have to negotiate with cities to get a share. They argue road projects would stall, resulting in gridlock.
“The impacts of a given project don’t stop at the city boundaries,” Deputy Palm Beach County Administrator Patrick Rutter said at a Jan. 30 state Senate committee hearing.
What’s happening: The bill could end a long-running dispute in Palm Beach County.
The county sued Palm Beach Gardens in 2021 to force the city to keep collecting and paying county road impact fees. Gardens had insisted state law allowed the city to collect the money as a mobility fee and keep it, depriving the county.
A Palm Beach County Circuit judge disagreed, ruling in the county’s favor in March 2022. An appellate court agreed in October 2022.
The court ordered Palm Beach Gardens to pay the county back $3 million in fees it collected but did not share. The city balked, asking the court for clarification. The court hasn’t ruled and the case has been dormant since October.
Palm Beach Gardens Mayor Chelsea Reed and City Attorney Max Lohman have appeared in front of several legislative committees to push Senate Bill 688, which has passed two committees and awaits action in a third, and House Bill 479, which has made it to the House floor.
“The county tells the municipalities how it’s going to be. They collect the impact fee and they impose it. And then in many incidences … those improvements don’t get built,” Lohman said at the Jan. 30 hearing. “This will require the local governments to enter into an interlocal agreement to apportion that single fee out.”
Lake Park collecting two fees
They’ve been joined by officials from Lake Park. That town just south of Gardens charges developers both the county impact fee and the city mobility fee.
Developers say two fees is unfair and Lake Park Town Manager John D’Agostino agreed.
He cited these figures: The county collected $1.2 million in impact fees covering roads and six other categories of impact on a single project: the 336-unit Nautilus 220 high rise in Lake Park.
The town charged the same developer $736,000 as its mobility fee.
Impact fees paid to the county don’t help Lake Park, D’Agostino said. The town’s few roads can’t be expanded.
“What we’re asking here is not only for clarity but for equity and fairness as it relates to a small community of 9,000 residents,” he said.
Joining Rutter in arguing for amendments to clarify how the money can be spent has been the Florida Association of Counties.
“To have a model where that person trying to get to work or trying to get home has to stop or go around a city or get out and ride a bicycle for a few miles to get to the other side doesn’t seem like an effective transportation system,” FAC lobbyist Bob McKee said at a Jan. 9 Senate committee hearing.
“The bottom line: … The future of the state is not going to be easy, free, clear transportation. We’re going to have gridlock.”
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Joel@OnGardens.org
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