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SARAH CAVACINI/Palatka Daily News. Putnam County Commissioner Larry Harvey speaks during a Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday.
Developers and builders won’t see impact fees for constructing in Putnam County for at least another year, elected officials decided Tuesday.
The Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 during its commission meeting to extend the impact fee moratorium until June 30, 2024. Commissioner Paul Adamczyk voted against the decision.
Impact fees, according to county documents, “are charges imposed on developers or builders to help fund infrastructure improvements and services necessitated by new development projects.”
The board adopted impact fees in October 2006, records show, but placed a moratorium on the fees in 2009 to help stimulate the economy during the recession.
Not much board discussion occurred Tuesday and Adamczyk did not comment on his reason for voting against the moratorium.
He has, however, made his viewpoint clear in the past.
In May 2022, he said he knew growth would be coming and surrounding counties would be running out of property on which to build. Adamczyk at the time called the lack of impact fees “ridiculous” because taxpayers are “basically footing the bill” for developers.
“I think we should have impact fees. I think our surrounding counties, almost all of them, have impact fees. It has not stunted growth at all,” Adamczyk said last year. “If anything, we were the most stunted out of the people and we didn’t have impact fees.”
Impact fees are set to alleviate the impact of an increased population or the demand on public services such as schools, transportation, parks and utilities, county documents state.
Commissioner Bill Pickens questioned if, before the end of the current moratorium, county employees were going to consider conducting a feasibility study regarding impact fees for the future.
Commissioner Larry Harvey clarified by saying every time the county looks at impact fees, they need to conduct a feasibility study, as per state law.
“It’s a good thing that we’re going to look at it,” Harvey said about future impact fee conversations. “I think some changes need to be done, but we’ll wait until that study comes in.”