Action Alert:
Hillsborough County Impact Fees

We need your voice!

Hillsborough County is considering increasing five different impact fees, starting with two on Wednesday, May 20. Collectively, these increases will more than double what developers are paying now for these fees.  We are concerned that rate hikes like these will slow or even stop construction of new apartment communities. This will harm job growth in our industry, investment in our local economy, and in the long-run hurt housing affordability. With the current economic challenges from the Coronavirus already affecting our industry, the County should not raise fees now. We need your help to ask the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners not to move forward with these increases. 

Send the Commissioners a Message 

You can send a message to Commissioners expressing your concern that they may increase impact fees. The County provides an online portal that will allow you to send a single message to all the Commissioners at one time. Messages should be sent by close of business on Tuesday, May 19.

The portal will have fields for you to include your name and other contact information, as well as your message. You do not need to include your contact information for the message to be sent. All messages sent to public officials are subject to Florida’s Sunshine Law, which means they are public records and anyone in the public can obtain them, including contact information if you provide it. 

Things to consider when you write your message:

• Different Commissioners are taking different positions on these fees.  Since you are sending one message to all the Commissioners, craft the message so that it applies to both someone in favor and opposed to our position.  
• Be professional and cordial. You are representing the industry and what you say and how you say it will reflect on our community and how open and willing the Commissioners will be to agree with our task.
• Reference your tie to the County. These are elected representatives who need to know if you live or work in the County, if you have an office in the County, or if your clients are in the County. 
• Be clear and concise. Your message does not have to be long. Keep it to the point and make sure your ask is clear.  In this case, your ask is for the Commissioners not to increase impact fees. 

Not sure what to write?  Here are a couple of sample messages you can use to guide drafting your own message to the Commissioners. Feel free to use any of this text, but be sure to make it your own by including information about you, your ties to the County, and your worries about how these fees might harm your work and our industry.

   Apartment Community Sample Message:

Subject:  No to higher impact fees

Dear Commissioner,

I work at the Pleasant Valley apartment community, located at 1000 Dale Mabry Highway in Hillsborough County. Please do not increase impact fees right now. Increasing impact fees will slow down or even stop the construction of new apartment buildings in the County. The economy has already become difficult enough and higher fees will mean fewer jobs in my industry and less investment in the County.  

Sincerely,

John Doe

   Supplier Sample Message

Subject:  Raising Impact Fees Hurts Jobs

Dear Commissioner,

I am writing to ask that you please do not increase impact fees. 

I am the owner and operator of a small family business that provides services to apartment communities throughout Hillsborough County. I have ten employees, most of whom live in the County. About 50% of my business comes from apartment communities in the County. Increasing impact fees now will slow construction of new apartment buildings.  This will reduce my future client base and constrain my ability to grow my business. At a time like this, the County should not be considering policies that discourage investment into our community.  

With Respects,

Jane Doe

Calling Commissioners

You can also call your County Commissioners and leave a message about your concerns regarding the impact fee increases.  The guidance above for email messages also apply for any phone message you leave.  

There are seven Commissioners; four are elected by district within the County and three are elected County-wide. To find the Commissioner that represents your specific district, you can input your address on this page and it will tell you which Commissioner covers your part of the County and their phone number. You could also focus your calls on the three Commissioners that are elected County-wide.  Those are:

Speak at the Next Commission Meeting

Normally Commission meetings are held in person, but because of the current Coronavirus emergency the Commission is conducting its business remotely. This means the public can speak to the Commission over the phone during their meeting.  We are looking for volunteers to speak during public comment at the next Commission meeting on Wednesday, May 20.  You will only have 3 minutes to speak and you will likely be called to speak sometime between 9AM and 10AM.  If you are interested in giving public comment, please contact Eric Garduno, our Government Affairs Director, who is coordinating BAAA's presence at the meeting.  You can reach him at GAD@baaahq.org.  

Additional Background

The Commissioners are scheduled to meet on Wednesday, May 20 to consider increasing impact fees for parks and transportation (referred to as mobility fees). Then, on June 17, the Commissioners will meet to discuss increasing fees related to the County’s water system (water, wastewater, and AGRF). 

Using the information in the County’s studies supporting the fee increases, we ran the numbers to compare the current fees for these categories to the fee amounts being proposed. This chart provides just one example of what these increases mean to the bottom-line of new construction - in this case, a 300-unit apartment community will pay a whopping $1.667 million dollar increase!  Looking closer at some of these fee increases, total cost per each apartment more than doubles, and in the case of parks, the fees skyrocket 10-fold.  

Increases of this magnitude are difficult to absorb in good economic times, but now with the Coronavirus and its effects on rents and the economy at large, increasing impact fees will likely drive investors away from Hillsborough County. Apartment buildings that would otherwise have been built, won't be built, and this means fewer jobs in our industry and fewer housing choices for people living in the County.