By MONROE ROARK
mroark@thecitizennews.com

Fayette County Board of Commissioners Chairman Harold Bost made a personal appeal to the City Council in Peachtree City last week for approval of the county's plan to impose an impact fee on new construction to help fund the new county jail.

Fees per household would range from $818.88 to $1,223.74 over a 20-year period, according to the county's calculations. The total amount of the bond issue for the jail is $25,107,000.

The commissioners voted March 29 at a special called meeting to approve impact fees. The county does not have the authority to impose impact fees on homes built in the cities, and the impact fee cannot be implemented at all unless every municipality in the county agrees to impose it, according to city staff reports.

The council agreed conceptually with the plan, but the issue was tabled until the April 20 meeting because there had not been enough time to consider this particular plan in detail.

The city will have to go through its own regular impact fee process to approve this plan, including the use of the impact fee committee and the usual state approval required for adoption of these fees, according to Mayor Bob Lenox.

Bost emphasized that the calculations being presented to the city were strictly for the jail. “The law is very clear about what we can charge impact fees for,” he said.

The jail has an official capacity of 86, but the daily average occupancy right now is more than 200, Bost reported.

“Please put this on the front burner,” he asked the council, noting that the county could be losing about $20,000 per week while the impact fees are delayed in being implemented. The county expects it will take up to six months to obtain final state approval, conduct public hearings, and do everything that is necessary to finalize the process before any actual impact fees can be collected.

Everyone agreed that the fees would ease the burden on existing homeowners. Lenox pointed out that Peachtree City has implemented impact fees for several years, and he continues to consider impact fees a good and fair way of bringing revenue into the city's coffers.

Bost estimated that jail impact fees would pay up to 60 percent of the debt service on the new jail. The balance would be covered by ad valorem taxes.