Fire

fighting and emergency services are ideal

candidates for Fayette's proposed impact fees, a

blue ribbon committee was told last week.

"In

my opinion, 75 percent of the cost of new

facilities for fire and emergency services should

be eligible for impact fees," said Jack

Krakeel, director of the county Department of

Fire and Emergency Services, during the impact

fee committee's third meeting. "I believe

the people coming into the county have a

responsibility to help pay for those

services," he added.

The

group, appointed by county commissioners to find

ways that developers can help pay the cost of new

government facilities, is getting down to

business. In its first two meetings, the group

chose a chairman and vice chairman, and decided

to focus first on public safety needs.

Krakeel

gave the committee an overview of current

facilities and equipment and educated its members

on how the county's emergency response people are

organized.

The

county is already slipping behind in facilities

as it struggles to keep up with growth, Krakeel

said.

"Current

facilities aren't even adequate for your current

population," he said.

Part

of the difficulty in planning future facilities,

Krakeel said, is guessing where the city limits

of Fayette's cities will be in the future, as

cities annex more and more unincorporated

property. Officials try to place new facilities

for maximum coverage of the unincorporated areas,

but that's a moving target, he said.

"Fifteen

years from now, I can't tell you where the city

limits of Fayetteville are going to be," he

said.

Annexation

also shrinks the available funds. The county

collects taxes for fire services only in the

areas outside Fayetteville and Peachtree City,

and as those areas shrink, so do the taxes.

Plans

are in place to build four new fire stations in

the next two years, he reported, but those

stations will merely replace current, antiquated

facilities. Over the next ten to 20 years, the

county will need four additional stations as

well, he said, at a cost of about $3 million

each.

Call

volume over the next ten years is expected to

grow 40 percent, and the department goal is to

maintain an average response time of five

minutes, he said.

If

proposals for an industrial park in Tyrone go

through, Krakeel added, the county will need an

aerial platform to provide adequate fire

protection. Fayette's firefighters cover the

unincorporated areas of the county, plus Tyrone,

Brooks and Woolsey.

Currently,

the county doesn't have any major industrial

areas to cover, but one is under discussion in

the Tyrone area.

Ordinary

pumper trucks cost around $200,000, but aerial

trucks cost $600,000, he said. "That's a

major capital expenditure," he added.

Krakeel's

department also is responsible for emergency

management throughout Fayette County, and its

emergency operations center is currently in a

second-story office in the County Administrative

Complex. Eventually, the EOC needs to be moved to

a new underground facility as part of a command

center for the department, he said.

Property

tax funding is not adequate to meet those kinds

of needs, Krakeel told the committee.

"It

took us eight years just to collect enough funds

from reserves to build Brooks station," he

said. That station was completed in December 1998

and will provide the model for all future

stations, he said.

If

the county chooses to enact impact fees,

developers will be charged a proportionate share

of the costs of the kinds of facilities and

equipment Krakeel outlined. The impact fee

committee's challenge is to figure out how much

each new home or business adds to those costs,

and set up fees that will cover those costs.

The

idea is to reduce the tax burden on existing

residents and businesses, shifting the costs of

new roads, recreation facilities and other

projects to those moving in.

The

group will study the information Krakeel provided

and try to come up with a formula that will

translate into dollars charged per home or

business. Then the figures have to be explained

so that the state Department of Community

Affairs, which oversees impact fees, will approve

the charges.

"We

can figure it out," said committee member

Steve Kiser. "It's just... can we justify

it?"

And

as the group noodles out fees to charge for fire

and emergency services, it will be going through

the same process for other categories of county

service.

Under

the law, impact fees can be charged to pay for

water treatment and supply; wastewater treatment;

roads, streets and bridges; storm water systems;

parks, open space and recreation areas; public

safety facilities, and libraries.

"The

needs are many," said committee Chairman Bob

Todd.

<!--

-----------