With impact fees as high as $60,000 in some parts of the country, moderately priced homes with fees passed on by builders are increasingly out of reach for targeted buyers. That is why the development industry is closely watching an impact fee financing structure recently put in place in Pasco County, Fla.
Officials there have created a Capacity Unit Assessment (CUA) program, where the municipality finances the pro rata share of the infrastructure impact fee for each new home and then recoups the finance charges and its share of the infrastructure cost through annual surcharges.
While this does not resolve the issue of whether impact fees are an equitable way to pay for new infrastructure, it does remove the upfront cost of these sometimes-large fees, which are then passed directly to the buyer through the price of a new home.
A potential benefit of CUAs is the low overhead involved because local officials administer CUAs without big startup costs. This would make the CUA process viable for relatively small new-home communities.
Advertisement
Related Stories
Land Planning
Helena Habitat for Humanity Aims to Build 1,000 Affordable Homes
A new Habitat for Humanity project in Helena, Mont., aims to deliver 1,000 affordable housing units and outdoor community amenities
Government + Policy
How Eminent Domain May Be Used to Respond to Climate Crises
Eminent domain, which grants the government power to take private property for public use, has displaced thousands of Americans for the sake of infrastructure in the past, but it may be used for a better purpose in a global climate crisis
Q+A
Soil Connect Is Moving Dirt and Building Relationships
Cliff Fetner created Soil Connect so builders and developers could more easily move dirt and other aggregates from jobsite to jobsite, but it has expanded to become something much more
