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Highlands Today

Commission To Consider Increasing Conservation Fee

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: November 13, 2007

SEBRING — Land values have increased significantly since 1993 in Highlands County.

But the fee assessed on building permits to fund acquisition of conservation lands has remained the same since it was adopted 14 years ago.

As a result, in December, the Highlands County commissioners are expected to consider a request from the county's Natural Resources Advisory Commission to raise the "environmental clearance waiver fee."

That fee, assessed on building permits on two acres or less, has never been changed from its original levels of $100 for residential and $250 for commercial.

"The resources that that fee were intended to purchase have become vastly more expensive" over the past 14 years, said Reed Bowman, chairman of NRAC's Environmental Fees Committee.

"So, if the original intent was to mitigate," he added, "we're doing a lot less mitigation now because the fee doesn't buy as much."

Earlier this year, Bowman said, NRAC members concluded "it was clear that the amount collected under that ordinance hadn't kept up with either inflation or real estate values, and it was appropriate to adjust it upward."

Last month, the county commissioners took no action on an NRAC recommendation to raise this conservation fee to $500. Commissioners didn't discuss the proposal's merits or reject the idea, but sent it back to NRAC because they considered the wording confusing.

At their Oct. 31 meeting, NRAC members expressed strong support for reworking the proposal and sending it back to commissioners.

NRAC's Environmental Fees Committee will meet Nov. 19 to draft a new proposal.

"We recommended $500 (originally) but that is not set in stone," Bowman said. "The committee may decide to change that after discussions with (county Attorney) Ross Macbeth before submitting a proposal to the county commissioners."

Bowman said Macbeth will attend the NRAC committee meeting because "we want to make sure that our final wording, when it goes before the board (of commissioners), is not confusing, and also is perfectly legal in terms of fitting in with county ordinances."

The environmental clearance waiver fees fund the county's Conservation Trust Fund, now at just over $1 million and available for acquisition or management of conservation lands.

Macbeth told NRAC the environmental clearance waiver fee allows the county to skip environmental clearance reports on projects of two acres or less.

If there were environmental clearance reports on these lots, he said, some property owners would face potentially high mitigation costs if endangered species were found on their lots, while other property owners, without environmentally sensitive land, would face no mitigation costs.

The standard environmental clearance waiver fee was adopted, Macbeth said, to put a minimal fee on all small-lot development and spread the financial burden equally for acquisition of conservation lands to compensate for the loss of natural habitat.

Bowman said he believes the public will support raising this fee, because it has not kept pace with inflation and escalating land prices.

"The fee was set 14 years ago and at that time that was considered an adequate amount to mitigate for the cumulative loss of endangered species to development," he said. "But how far does that $100 go today?

"We all know what has happened to the real estate market."

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