group of Fayette county and city staff and

elected officials will meet again this week or

next to try and iron out differences over impact

fees for the new Fayette County Jail.

Fayetteville

and Tyrone officials continue to question the

formula for charging the fees to businesses and

industries, while Peachtree City officials remain

opposed to charging any fees to businesses and

industries, arguing instead for placing the

entire burden on new homes.

"We

need to leave industries alone," said

Peachtree City Councilman Robert Brooks following

a recent council meeting.

Impact

fees are levied on new construction to help

defray the costs of new government facilities and

services made necessary by growth.

Fayette's

County Commission voted early this year to impose

impact fees to help pay the $25 million cost of a

new jail and for new fire stations and fire

services.

Since

Peachtree City and Fayetteville provide their own

fire services, there is no need for a cooperative

agreement on those services, but the jail is a

county-wide facility, and the commission's vote

included the caveat that all cities must agree to

impose and collect the fees within their borders

if the fees are to be used at all.

Therein

lies the rub. Fayetteville, Tyrone and Peachtree

City already collect impact fees for various

services within their borders, and all three use

different formulas and methods of figuring the

fees. Coming up with a common method for the jail

fees has been difficult thus far.

During

a meeting July 11, officials directed assistant

County Attorney Dennis Davenport to rework the

formula for charging different fees for several

categories of business, industry and

institutional construction. When the new formula

was faxed to governments last week, it drew some

negative reaction.

"The

revised program does not appear to apply impact

fees fairly to the various nonresidential

uses," said Tyrone Town Manager Barry Amos

in a memo to the mayor and Town Council. For

instance, he said, the formula would give

religious organizations more than three times the

"weight" of construction firms in

calculating fees.

"Weight"

is a number assigned to each category based on

its projected impact on jail population.

"It

is difficult to envision how a religious

organization would create three and one-third

times the demand for jail services over a general

contractor, bank or similar users that have a

jail demand factor of one," said Amos.

The

formula, which would impose fees based on square

footage multiplied by the weight factor, also

should have a ceiling built in, said Amos.

"While this revised fee schedule is an

improvement, it would still result in a project

such as Bowers paying an impact fee of between

$134,278 and $447,144 depending on what type of

business locates there," he said. "This

could still result in difficulty in attracting

desirable business."

Meanwhile,

Peachtree City officials remain opposed to any

impact fees for business and industry.

During

a recent discussion with Bost and Davenport, City

Attorney Rick Lindsey said the city would have to

"credit" the new business or industry

for other obligations if it collects the impact

fee.

"That's

like taking $100,000 out of my pocket," said

Mayor Bob Lenox..

Lenox

said the cities don't have to use the same system

for collecting impact fees. But Davenport said

the county would prefer for everyone to agree

since the plan must be approved by the state

Department of Community Affairs before the fees

can be collected.

"I

really don't care if it matches up with what

you're doing," Lenox said. "Legally,

they don't have to be exactly the same."

"We're

trying to get something that's acceptable to

everybody," Bost said. "We're trying to

get everybody to agree so the new growth can

start paying for the jail."

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