State Rep. Brett Hage, R-The Villages, is taking a victory lap after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill he has championed limiting impact fees on developers.
The law will directly benefit The Villages, Hage’s employer. Hage earns a six-figure salary working as vice president for residential development in The Villages.
The new law caps impact fee increases at 12.5 percent a year. The law is retroactive to Jan. 1.
Hage made the cap on impact fees his mission after the Sumter County Commission in a controversial 3-2 vote earlier this year decided to raise impact fees. Commissioners Craig Estep, Oren Miller and Gary Search were attempting to make good on the campaign promise which swept them into office in 2020. The trio had hoped to tip the scales back in favor of Sumter County taxpayers after previous commissioners voted for a 25 percent property tax rate increase in 2019.
“We had no other option. We had to get this done and we did,” Hage told The Villages Daily Sun, the newspaper owned by his employer.
This is now Hage’s crowning legislative achievement, although he also managed to make a Village of Osceola Hills man happy by updating a law this session regarding Ellipti-Go bicycles.
