In an aggressive attempt to create jobs and economic development in northeast Pasco County, the Dade City commission has decided to suspend transportation impact fees for two years.
“We were looking at ways to spur some growth in
Dade City to see what we could to to either help bring business here or assist in growing the businesses currently located here,” says City Manager Billy Poe. “We saw this as the next step to help incentivize businesses to move to the area.”
According to Poe, the city carefully examined the amount of money brought in by the impact fees and found that the numbers had significantly dropped over the past two years. The decision to suspend the fees was made after looking at some other options: either keeping or reducing the fee collection schedule.
Ultimately,
the city commissioners decided to suspend the fees to budget for a transportation study that may allow a reduction in fees; the budget will allow the study to see what the fees should really be. Poe says the city felt suspending the fees for a period of time was the best approach.
“We saw that some of the areas surrounding Dade City were starting to look at their TIF [transportation impact fees], so we began evaluating our own,” says Community Development Director Mike Sherman. “We found that our fees were higher than most and want to be competitive. This suspension will give us an extra boost.”
In addition to the suspension of transportation impact fees, the city currently offers several business incentives, as well as county and state incentives. A revision of the land development code is currently in the works in an attempt to speed up the permitting and developing process in Dade City.
According to Sherman, the fee suspension will have no negative impact on road projects.
Writer:
Alexis Quinn Chamberlain
Source: Billy Poe & John Sherman,
Dade City
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