The Santa Rosa County Commission fine-tuned its transportation impact fee ordinance last week, creating an economic development credit to help new businesses.

“We’re not impairing the standard, we’re just making it possible for it to be very attractive to industry, which we need,”  Commission Chairman John Broxson said.
In 2006, the county began charging impact fees to pay for roads and other transportation infrastructure to support new residential and commercial development. Critics say the fees discourage development. The economic development credit is the commission’s latest attempt to make fees more palatable to prospective investors. Earlier this year the commission amended the ordinance to make the first impact fee payment due when a building permit is issued instead of when the development order is approved, reducing the up-front cost of building in Santa Rosa.

 

For more on this story, see the Aug. 21 issue of Navarre Press or subscribe online.

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