• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
MENUMENU
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • FlaglerLive Board of Directors
    • Comment Policy
    • Mission Statement
    • Our Values
    • Privacy Policy
  • Live Calendar
  • Submit Obituary
  • Submit an Event
  • Support FlaglerLive
  • Advertise on FlaglerLive (386) 503-3808
  • Search Results

FlaglerLive

No Bull, no Fluff, No Smudges

MENUMENU
  • Flagler
    • Flagler County Commission
    • Beverly Beach
    • Economic Development Council
    • Flagler History
    • Mondex/Daytona North
    • The Hammock
    • Tourist Development Council
  • Palm Coast
    • Palm Coast City Council
    • Palm Coast Crime
  • Bunnell
    • Bunnell City Commission
    • Bunnell Crime
  • Flagler Beach
    • Flagler Beach City Commission
    • Flagler Beach Crime
  • Cops/Courts
    • Circuit & County Court
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • Federal Courts
    • Flagler 911
    • Fire House
    • Flagler County Sheriff
    • Flagler Jail Bookings
    • Traffic Accidents
  • Rights & Liberties
    • Fourth Amendment
    • First Amendment
    • Privacy
    • Second Amendment
    • Seventh Amendment
    • Sixth Amendment
    • Sunshine Law
    • Third Amendment
    • Religion & Beliefs
    • Human Rights
    • Immigration
    • Labor Rights
    • 14th Amendment
    • Civil Rights
  • Schools
    • Adult Education
    • Belle Terre Elementary
    • Buddy Taylor Middle
    • Bunnell Elementary
    • Charter Schools
    • Daytona State College
    • Flagler County School Board
    • Flagler Palm Coast High School
    • Higher Education
    • Imagine School
    • Indian Trails Middle
    • Matanzas High School
    • Old Kings Elementary
    • Rymfire Elementary
    • Stetson University
    • Wadsworth Elementary
    • University of Florida/Florida State
  • Economy
    • Jobs & Unemployment
    • Business & Economy
    • Development & Sprawl
    • Leisure & Tourism
    • Local Business
    • Local Media
    • Real Estate & Development
    • Taxes
  • Commentary
    • The Conversation
    • Pierre Tristam
    • Diane Roberts
    • Guest Columns
    • Byblos
    • Editor's Blog
  • Culture
    • African American Cultural Society
    • Arts in Palm Coast & Flagler
    • Books
    • City Repertory Theatre
    • Flagler Auditorium
    • Flagler Playhouse
    • Flagler Youth Orchestra
    • Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
    • Palm Coast Arts Foundation
    • Special Events
  • Elections 2024
    • Amendments and Referendums
    • Presidential Election
    • Campaign Finance
    • City Elections
    • Congressional
    • Constitutionals
    • Courts
    • Governor
    • Polls
    • Voting Rights
  • Florida
    • Federal Politics
    • Florida History
    • Florida Legislature
    • Florida Legislature
    • Ron DeSantis
  • Health & Society
    • Flagler County Health Department
    • Ask the Doctor Column
    • Health Care
    • Health Care Business
    • Covid-19
    • Children and Families
    • Medicaid and Medicare
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Violence
  • All Else
    • Daily Briefing
    • Americana
    • Obituaries
    • News Briefs
    • Weather and Climate
    • Wildlife

Proposed 90% Increase in Flagler Beach Impact Fees Shadowed by Questions and a Looming Development

March 27, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 8 Comments

Construction of the Margaritaville Hotel in the heart of Flagler Beach as it stood at the end of January. Any new impact fees levied by the city would not apply to the hotel. (© FlaglerLive)
Construction of the Margaritaville Hotel in the heart of Flagler Beach as it stood at the end of January. Any new impact fees levied by the city would not apply to the hotel. (© FlaglerLive)

After hearing it first proposed last July and twice opting not to adopt it just yet since, the Flagler Beach City Commission will try again on Thursday to approve a revised impact fee schedule that would raise water and sewer fees for the first time in 14 years and create new impact fees for parks, police, fire and the library system. 

But questions about the study rationalizing the new schedule, including from a city commissioner and from the Flagler County Home Builders Association, continue to shadow the proposal. 




Overdue though it may appear, the timing of the proposed increase is not necessarily coincidental, with the 2,700-home Veranda Bay development poised to annex into the city. Veranda Bay would essentially double the size of the city at buildout. Flagler Beach would stand to capitalize substantially in impact fee revenue alone from that annexation. 

Flagler Beach government had previously assailed Veranda Bay, when it was called The Gardens. One of its former city commissioners is still battling a defamation suit stemming from his opposition to the development before he was elected, as is a former community activist. 

The city has since gone from critic to courtesan. In January the city changed its annexation rules specifically to enable a fell-swoop annexation of Veranda Bay while writing what amounts to an official love letter to Ken Belshe, the developer, to woo him away from possibly annexing into Palm Coast. That city has not been as nakedly solicitous. 




The proposed schedule in Flagler Beach would raise total impact fees on a typical single-family house of between 1,500 and 2,000 square feet from $5,592 to $10,648, a 90 percent increase. New fees account for three quarters of the increase. The schedule does not include school impact fees, which add $5,450 for a single-family house, or a revised administrative fee schedule that would add modest amounts to the total.  

The new fee for police and fire would be a little over $1,000 each, the library fee would be $284, the parks and recreation fee would be $1,250, assuming a house between 1,500 and 2,000 square feet.  That would be “the maximum supportable impact fee schedule for the non utility impact fees,” as L. Carson Bise, president of TischlerBise, described it to city commissioners last July. TischlerBise produced the impact fee study. 


Flagler Beach Impact Fees, 2024

Impact FeeCurrent feeProposed feeDifference
Water$2,509$3,007$498
Sewer$3,083$3,806$723
Police $0$1,054$1,054
Fire$0$1,247$1,247
Library$0$284$284
Parks$0$1,250$1,250
Totals$5,592$10,648$5,056
Source: Flagler Beach government. Note: the figures above are based on a typical single family home of between 1,500 and 2,000 square feet. The fee schedule is different for larger or smaller homes, for homes that consume more water and generate more sewer, and for commercial properties. See the ordinance with complete fee schedules broken down by types and square footage here.

For water and sewer alone, the fees would increase from $5,592 to $6,813, or 22 percent. But that increase looks bigger than it is. When adjusted for inflation, the water and sewer fees are still a decrease compared to where they would be if the city were merely keeping its fees in line with inflation. 

Flagler Beach’s water and sewer impact fees have not changed since 2012. Adjusted for inflation, the fees set in 2012 would be equivalent to $7,656 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator. In effect, the proposed increase still falls $843 short of that parity, or purchasing power, at today’s dollars. 




Nevertheless, the political climate is such that raising impact fees, which are all but indistinguishable from taxes, can be risky. Similar calculations apply to the 2022 increase in school impact fees, an increase that fell short of keeping up with inflation, yet still at least in part cost the superintendent and the board attorney their jobs. They had pressed for higher fees. The local chamber, with three school board members in its corner, retaliated. 

Palm Coast just approved a 30 percent increase in water and sewer impact fees phased in over four years. The local home builders’ association did not oppose that increase and the chamber kept mum, so the fact that the city manager lost her job days later may have been coincidental. 

The Flagler Beach City Commission tends to be more effectively insulated from special-interest pressures. It is basing its impact fee schedule on a study by TischlerBise, the Bethesda-based consultancy that has conducted similar studies for the school board, Palm Coast and numerous other Florida governments. 




Local governments may not arbitrarily set fees where they please. They are required to justify their impact fee increases through rigorous and transparent studies, which must establish a need based on demonstrable evidence. Starting last year, local governments have been barred by state law from increasing their impact fees more than once every four years, and even then, the increase must be limited to 50 percent. If it is to be anywhere between 25 and 50 percent, it must be spread over four years. 

Flagler Beach City Commissioners in September held back from discussing or approving the study’s recommendations, opting instead to give their new manager time to digest it. In November, the proposal was yet again pulled from the agenda.

“We sent it back because there were a lot of discrepancies and inaccuracies” in the study, City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur said. He was also looking for a funding mechanism for sidewalks in the city, which would amount to a transportation impact fee, which the current proposal still does not include. 

The Flagler Home Builders Association, which has sought, within reason, to accommodate local governments’ needs for higher fees, is also finding the proposal problematic even after it was revised. 




“Once again, we found errors and miscalculations,” Annamaria Long, the association’s executive officer, said today in a statement. “The need for impact fees in Flagler Beach rests largely on the anticipated annexation of Veranda Bay.  Some may see adopting impact fees ahead of the annexation as ‘putting the cart before the horse,’ but it is good government to do the research. Unfortunately, some of this research provided by TischlerBise is inaccurate or overreaching which will have long-lasting consequences for the Flagler Beach tax-payers in terms of legacy costs that they will be responsible for paying for ad infinitum.” By legacy costs, she means that while impact fees pay for a new facility, that facility must then be staffed and maintained, at costs borne by the general fund year after year. 

In a written analysis, Long cited nine errors, though several of those are more in the category of picayune rounding errors than the kind of errors that would make a difference in the city’s or a builder’s bottom line (for example, a $906 difference in a $1.37 million calculation, or an $11 difference in a $2.8 million calculation, or even smaller decimal differences). However the main concern, Long’s analysis  stated, is the study’s inclusion of Veranda Bay’s 2,700 homes in its residential projections, though the development is in its earliest beginnings. Long also disputes the study’s methodology in calculating police needs by number of residents, or translating that to the square footage needs of a new police facility. “This is based on the assumption that a little over half a square foot of police facility is needed per resident,” she wrote “I personally cannot figure out why.”

Long sent her analysis to City Manager Dale Martin and the commissioners on Tuesday, encouraging them to have further discussions. “I trust that the Commission will uphold TischlerBise to the quality they promise and the The Flagler HBA will continue to be an active participant in this process,” Long said. 




Impact fees are one-time levies on new construction intended to defray the “impact” of new residents on a city’s or a county’s infrastructure. As such, the revenue is restricted to new or expanding infrastructure. It may not be used for operational costs. It may not be used to repair a roof or an existing building, and it may not be used for anything not directly related to the fee’s purpose: police impact fee revenue may not be used for fire services, water impact fee revenue may not be used for sewer services, and so on. 

The up-front cost of Flagler Beach’s new impact fees would be be more expensive for builders, though they pass those costs to property buyers, while the city will have vast new streams of revenue to underwrite the expansion of existing infrastructure or the building of new infrastructure, as well as the expansion (but not replacement) of the city’s fire and police fleets, or fire and police buildings. 

For example, the inclusion of a new library impact fee implies that the city will either be expanding its existing library or building a new one, in addition to the existing one.  “By adopting these fees, you would be committing in the case of the library to either making an additional expansion to it, not just renovating it within its current square footage,” Bise told commissioners. “It would mean either building another library branch or making an addition to the current library.” 

The same implication applies to the fire services and the police department. “So if the commission feels that we’re not likely to spend money on increasing library square footage, or police square footage, for instance, over the next 10 years,” Bise said, “then you should give some strong consideration to perhaps not implementing those two fees.” 

The ordinance proposing the new fee schedule is scheduled for a first reading at the City Commission’s meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (March 28).

flagler-beach-impact-fees-2024
Support FlaglerLive's End of Year Fundraiser
Thank you readers for getting us to--and past--our year-end fund-raising goal yet again. It’s a bracing way to mark our 15th year at FlaglerLive. Our donors are just a fraction of the 25,000 readers who seek us out for the best-reported, most timely, trustworthy, and independent local news site anywhere, without paywall. FlaglerLive is free. Fighting misinformation and keeping democracy in the sunshine 365/7/24 isn’t free. Take a brief moment, become a champion of fearless, enlightening journalism. Any amount helps. We’re a 501(c)(3) non-profit news organization. Donations are tax deductible.  
You may donate openly or anonymously.
We like Zeffy (no fees), but if you prefer to use PayPal, click here.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Honestly! says

    March 27, 2024 at 4:20 pm

    It’s been 14 years! The Homebuilders association is total BS. Annamarie Long is a soul sucking pig. It’s a wonder she can sleep at night. Those are low impact fees beachside anywhere in Florida. Suck it up developers, let’s not pretend you don’t pass off those fees to the buyer. Veranda Bay can stop buying politician campaigns and pay the damn impact fees.

  2. The dude says

    March 27, 2024 at 5:04 pm

    An Impact fee just gets you a development.

    Political contributions buy you a politician, which can (and in Flagler often does) lead to many developments.

  3. Deborah Coffey says

    March 27, 2024 at 5:13 pm

    I can’t wrap my mind around why so many people believe that Republicans can actually govern. They waited 10 years to address a problem? Yes, because they can never upset the wealthiest among us.

  4. Jay Rhame says

    March 28, 2024 at 6:04 am

    Dear FlaglerLive,

    The link provided at the bottom of the Fee schedule doesn’t link to Flagler Beach but to the BUNNELL CITY COMMISSION MEETING
    Monday, March 25, 2024.

    Source: Flagler Beach government. Note: the figures above are based on a typical single family home of between 1,500 and 2,000 square feet. The fee schedule is different for larger or smaller homes, for homes that consume more water and generate more sewer, and for commercial properties. See the ordinance with complete fee schedules broken down by types and square footage here.

  5. FlaglerLive says

    March 28, 2024 at 11:08 am

    Thank you for the kind correction. It has been replaced with the correct link.

  6. BMW says

    March 28, 2024 at 3:03 pm

    I can’t wrap my head around how a person could be so limited as to only see life through a political spectrum. There are many reasons the impact fees are now coming to light and your notion of them being in any manner a product of political representation amongst our commission or city management shows a true lack of understanding.

  7. Emma says

    March 28, 2024 at 3:11 pm

    First off, I plead ignorance. Just do not understand this at all. We live out of state and have thought about buying a modular home in Flagler. Now wonder if we should just do the short-term rentals for vacation. Can we afford the insurance, now water/sewer increases…? And all under water by 2050!!

    Have loved Flagler Beach for over 50 years and beginning to groan with the traffic all week, not just weekends, bike week, etc.

    Let us know before we take a leap!

  8. Hammock Huck says

    March 28, 2024 at 8:33 pm

    Stay put. PLEASE.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Conner Bosch law attorneys lawyers offices palm coast flagler county
  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Primary Sidebar

  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Recent Comments

  • Enough is enough on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Nephew Of Uncle Sam on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Dakota on Palm Coast City Attorney Calls Mayor Norris ‘Unprofessional and Inappropriate’ 3 Weeks After Censure for Similar Behavior
  • Jaii Hein on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Laurie Jo Jo Bergman on Margaritaville’s Compass Hotel in Flagler Beach Opens in Buffett-Themed Celebration of a Downtown Remade
  • Kat on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Critical Eye on Palm Coast City Attorney Calls Mayor Norris ‘Unprofessional and Inappropriate’ 3 Weeks After Censure for Similar Behavior
  • JimboXYZ on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Grey Man on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • NJ on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Dave on Margaritaville’s Compass Hotel in Flagler Beach Opens in Buffett-Themed Celebration of a Downtown Remade
  • Canary on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • Canary on Palm Coast City Attorney Calls Mayor Norris ‘Unprofessional and Inappropriate’ 3 Weeks After Censure for Similar Behavior
  • More Blondes on Afrikaners are South African Opportunists, Not Refugees
  • America First on Danko No Longer District Director for Randy Fine; Congressman Calls for Nuking Gaza’s 2 Million Palestinians
  • No political affiliation on Palm Coast’s Golden Chopsticks Buffet Open Again 2 Days After Sanitation Inspection Ordered It Closed

Log in