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.

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