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.

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