Impact Fee Fiasco
A judge in Anne Arundel County has ordered the county to refund $4.7 million in improperly used school and road impact fees. With interest, Anne Arundel County could be forced to refund over $11 million.
With the recent imposition of a schools impact fee in Wicomico County we want to encourage our new County Executive and County Council to use caution in how the new fees are spent. Better to pay a little more in legal fees today to get it right than pay massive refunds in the future.
Our county government will soon find out that the schools impact fee is not going to solve the school capacity problem in Wicomico County. However, a grave problem will only be exacerbated by using the impact fee funds improperly.
Hopefully the county will begin study of adopting a strong APFO and requesting authorization from the legislature to enact an excise tax. In the interim, our kids can continue to attend overcrowded schools.
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My sister in-law lives in the same development as Lynn Cathcart, they right now are having association meetings questioning what happens to these 55 homes when the owner passes away and they leave the property to their kids.
A lot of questions about the “How’s” and “Who’s” to police that. If developers are slack on paying impact fees for schools and the property is left to peoples kids, who also have kids, developers are derelict of paying impact fee’s for school renovations and upkeep.
Maybe a big question to hash over at a council meeting, or I foresee the same problems in just a few years that we have now.
I wish they would just make their mind up and decide, is growth, really going to pay for growth? You wanna build it, pay for it, end of story.
IMO, we live in America, and if someone wants to leave their property to a child or grandchild, here in America I take that for a given, whether the original agreement can be policed, that will cost taxpayers more money and kids “WILL,” be living in those homes eventually.
The words “Senior Housing,” are now being over used to avoid impact fees, they should be across the board with no exceptions, as there is no way to force people to leave their property to no other than the persons they want to leave it to.
Lynn Cathcart is also on the neighborhood association board and knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Sounds like socialism to me, communities for people that don’t want to be around children, what next, commumities for people that don’t want to live around people of a different race or national origin?
God forbid, but what would happen if someone living in a 55 community lost their child from illness or accident, do these 55 associations think they can keep the owners from taking in their grandchildren? Impact fees should be across the board, no exceptions.