By Eric Curl / Savannahagenda.com
Sept. 08, 2022 update – The Savannah City Council unanimously approved transferring the capital improvements plan to the Coastal Georgia Regional Commission for review, as part of the impact fee program development process. If approved by the commission, the plan will again have to be considered by the city council for official adoption.
Sept. 07, 2022 – A new report going before the Savannah City Council Thursday outlines projects that would be funded by an impact fee program being developed by the city.
The report, known as a Capital Improvements Element (CIE), includes parks, recreation, roads and public safety projects. Among the projects included in a 2023-2027 work program are a Southside community center, skate park, New Hampstead and Hutchinson Island fire stations, Southside and Eastside police stations and the widening of Stiles Avenue.
The city is developing the impact fee program as a way to defray costs of expanding public facilities needed to serve new growth. The CIE would be transmitted to the Coastal Georgia Regional Commission for regional and state review as required, if approved by the mayor and aldermen.
The proposed transmittal is the latest step in the development of the impact fee program. The CIE comes after a consultant presented an impact fee methodology report to the city council in June that outlined the maximum fee amounts that could be charged developers under the plan. The updated August draft of the report includes some changes, including some modified maximum fee amounts.
The amount of the fees the city will charge will be determined by the city council as the impact fee ordinance is developed, according to Bridget Lidy, the city’s director of planning and urban design, who presented the CIE to the Metropolitan Planning Commission Tuesday. In many cases, communities will go ahead and adopt half of the maximum fee to move the program forward, Lidy told the commission.
If the council chooses to charge less than those maximum amounts, the city would have to fund the cost of the projects using another revenue source, such as the general fund or a special purpose local option sales tax dollars.
Fee exemptions can be granted for affordable housing and developments that represent “extraordinary economic or employment growth, however, the city would also have to cover the cost of those exemptions.
The methodology report and CIE was developed by Ross + Associates after the city council approved a $92,800 contract with the consultant in September to assist the city in implementing the impact fee ordinance.
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