Impact Fees: Now Come The Details

The County Commission has agreed we are going to impose "impact fees" in Hall County, and apparently the first step is to appoint a five-person committee to figure out how we're going to do that. The logic behind impact fees is to create a specific tax aimed at actions that have an impact on the local economy and thus the finances of the county. The key selling point is this: make growth pay for growth. Which means if somebody builds a new house or building, not only should they pay the same taxes as the rest of us, but they should also contribute to any extra expenses they have caused because they moved here after we did. That sounds logical, but now we get down to that point where people say: "the devil is in the details."

For instance, how are we going to do this without running new industry out of the county, and one of our stated goals is to lower HOME property taxes by bringing in more tax-paying industry. And watch this one: compared with houses and especially
apartments, it is usually provable that a new industry will contribute more in taxes than it costs the county to service that industry, so if that is the impact then shouldn't that industry receive some tax credits? Or if we push all the shopping centers across the county line to places like the Mall of Georgia, or the discount malls in Dawson and Banks Counties, then what happens to income from Hall County's sales tax? And how are we going to be fair to the old-timers who have been paying taxes here a lot longer than we have, and now must sell their land because they can no longer afford the taxes but to sell their land they must seek a change in the zoning, say from agriculture to something else?

We voted ourselves a tax increase called "impact fees" and that is not inappropriate. But, it seems to me the County Commissioners and their hand-picked committee have their work cut out for them if they are going to work through the details without doing severe damage to the economy of Hall County.

This is Gordon Sawyer, and may the wind always be at your back.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/10/189083