By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

It will be several months yet before Fayette's home building industry will begin paying fees to help pay for a new jail and four new fire stations... if at all.

County commissioners last week voted 3-2 to “commence the process to impose impact fees” of an estimated $1,750 on each new home. If the fees become a reality, approximately $820 will go for jail construction and $930 for fire stations.

Now county officials must sharpen their pencils and refine their figures and submit the program to the state Department of Community Affairs for its approval before going through a round of public hearings and adopting an ordinance that will finalize the process.

Meanwhile, commission Chairman Harold Bost has already begun writing and phoning mayors of Fayette's cities seeking their support for having the fees collected within their borders.

The commission's vote to impose impact fees for the jail carries the caveat that all the cities must participate or the program won't go forward.

“All of the cities have prisoners that they send over to the jail,” said Bost. “It seemed like the only fair way to approach it.”

The mayors of Fayette's two largest agreed with Bost.

“The jail serves the entire community, and the entire community should probably participate,” said Kenneth Steele, mayor of Fayetteville.

“I'm generally pretty favorable toward impact fees,” agreed Bob Lenox, Peachtree City's mayor. The county jail, he said, “is basically a consolidated facility that serves the county and the cities.”

Bost said he has received similar comments from all the county's mayors, but the mayors still must take the request to their city councils for approval.

Impact fees for jail construction are expected to generate about $1 million a year to help pay the county's debt for the project. By state law, the fees can be used only for the portion of the $60 million judicial complex construction project that is directly associated with the jail — about $25 million — and then only for the portion of the jail construction that can be directly attributed to future growth in the county — about 54 percent.

Debt service on the entire project is expected to cost the county about $4 million a year.

The fire services part of the impact fee is expected to generate about $17.8 million over 20 years.

“That's a nice big portion of that paid through impact fees,” said Bost.

Bost has been pushing for imposition of impact fees ever since he was elected to the commission four years ago.

Commissioners Linda Wells and Greg Dunn also made an issue of impact fees in their election campaigns in 1998.

“I'm looking forward to collecting impact fees to let new construction help pay for the infrastructure that is made necessary by growth,” Bost said following the commission vote.

Commissioners also hope to collect the fees for recreation projects, but the county currently doesn't have a capital improvement program in place for recreation, something the state requires before the fees can be imposed.

The group last week tabled a recommendation from its impact fee committee to impose a $250 impact fee for recreation, with plans to develop a capital improvement program soon.