A firm that authored a controversial study of Sumter County fire assessment fees has been hired to address another hot button issue – road impact fees.
Commissioners voted Tuesday night to open contract negotiations with Alfred Benesch & Co. to prepare a study of road impact fees, which must be reviewed every five years. The national Chicago-based company has four offices in Florida.
Benesch had the highest score of two bidders and was recommended by a selection committee.
Road impact fees became a hard-fought issue in 2021 when commissioners approved a 75 percent hike that would have boosted the fees for The Villages Developer to $1,701 per single-family lot in the age-restricted development, up from $972.
Three commissioners elected after incumbents were ousted over a 24 percent property tax-rate increase in 2019 viewed the fees as a way to ease the tax burden on homeowners.
Roads in The Villages are built under a cost-sharing agreement with the Sumter County in which the county reimburses The Villages for construction and maintains the roads.
Overflow crowds, including construction workers and small business owners, appeared at public hearings to protest the increases.
The increases were rescinded after a state law effective July 1 that year, but retroactive to Jan. 1, restricted single impact fee increases to 12.5 percent. The legislation was co-sponsored by then State Rep. Brett Hage, R-33, who received a six-figure annual salary from The Villages.
County Chairman Craig Estep, who supported the fee hikes, is the only commissioner remaining from that year.
More recently, Benesch wrote a controversial study of county fire assessment fees issued in June that based the fees for non-residential property on square footage.
Commissioners rejected the proposed fee hikes after business owners said they would owe $40,000 or more in annual fire fees using the square footage formula.
Losing the proposed fire fee revenue drastically shrunk the budgets of the county’s two fire departments. Sumter County firefighters agreed to forego an 8.7 percent cost-of-living increase for county employees to avoid layoffs.
The Villages Public Safety Department provides fire and rescue services in The Villages while the Sumter County Fire Department offers those services in the rest of the county.
Founded in 1946 as a structural and civil engineering firm, Benesch has 47 offices and 1,000 employees from California to Maine. The company has done impact fee studies in Collier and Orange counties.