Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e e e e it's time I'm sorry paperwork together

get bang the G how we start meeting U I'd like to call the um February 19th uh Planning Commission meeting to order thank everybody for being here this evening I will speak slowly on the introduction as the um last seat is filled um we will uh start with a roll call from my left to right if we could please Aaron Slade red Harbison Jesse Elliot Lisa Christie Chelsea W and I'm Bob bigger filling in as chairman tonight in Dr Crawford's absence um again appreciate everybody uh being here this evening uh we have a a full agenda appreciate everybody's cooperation as we work through this as a reminder there will be parts of the uh agenda where we will have have um public uh comment uh sessions as part of that uh when we get to those parts of the agenda I will open the floor for comments and ask that you come to the microphone introduce yourself give your name and address um and try to keep your comments to five minutes so that we've got time for everybody to um make their comments uh moving on in the agenda um want to start with the approval of the minutes from our December 18th regular meeting any review updates to the minutes not seeing anything motion to approve the minutes motion to approve second we have a first and a second all right thank you very much um next uh confirmation of agenda oh I'm sorry vote my apologies all in favor say I thank you next uh Mr Paradise any uh confirmation of the agenda any changes to the agenda this evening uh no sir no

changes all right very good we will move into um item pp2 24-5 this is the rurn mill major subdivision preliminary plant request by blackton and Associates for a major subdivision preliminary plat approval for Raburn Mill project proposes 54 single family attached homes the application effects 29348 acers located at 401 West 5 Notch Road including parcels 051 19021 and 031 zoned R7 small lot single family residential um uh Mr chairman yes sir um Miss Slade has submitted a recusal form for this so she'll be stepping out of the room until it's heard so noted thank you very much um uh Mr Paradise anything else about this request that that we need to know from the commission yes sir yeah this is a piece of property 29 Acres that y'all been working with for a while here for a few years it is adjacent to Mossy Creek Elementary you may remember that there was a resoning request came through and part of it was rezoned R7 from the um basically they cut out the part that was Wetlands that was critical resered this is the parcel here there's nothing really to the South residential across the street and the um Elementary School to the north and there's a large Woods between the two

that is the survey where it was cut out and rezoned and um this is the layout for the single family attached housing um since this is single family attached housing it is not regulated by the moratorium this is not multif family so um we have reviewed it um staff is um ready to sign off on the plans uh we have the copies sitting on the desk we just need the planning commission's approval very good any questions for Mr Paradise is there somebody from the applicant that would uh like to address this this evening please again name and address please James Dean granston 452 LS Street Augusta Georgia um not much to add to Mr Tommy's uh explanation of the development um I'll answer any questions Commissioners may have any questions all right we don't seem to have any questions thank you very much if you'll sit down we'll finish our discussion any discussion amongst ourselves questions comments all right then we'll I'll accept a motion to all right I'll make a motion to recommend uh sorry let me read this part with the

conditions uh that this approval includes certification of use of the road names Quon run and Banda court and any outstanding comments will be addressed to the sa satisfaction of the city staff I have a motion to approve second second all in favor say I I I opposed pass unan unanimously thank you very much papers um next item on the agenda um hold on uh rzm 24-6 this is a resoning request by mcnight inler to reone 2.59 acres from GC General commercial to P plan development uh the request affects Parcels 0 1-20-1 001 and 010 1-20-1 d002 located at 1141 West martintown Road purpose of this request is to include the commercial Parcels in the hive planned development Paradise anything else we need to know about this request yes sir if if I may um I'd like to discuss this one and also the next one with the um plan development General um General development plan modification because these two were linked together um and it's hard to discuss one without explaining the other one in there as well um this is something that

actually you see the hive okay Hive development we've been talking about it for while now and it is um they're out there moving dirt but you see um these two Parcels here that are Zone General commercial now to ride by the project you would think that these Parcels was included in that project but they're not and what is the reason the resoning and really um staff really in we highly recommended it to the developer we we make make it um we suggested it he looked at it he concurred with us and brought in the application and what it does is allows us to look at that land the same as we look at every as the rest of the PD now why do you want to say why do we want that well other wise when you get that little black line in the red even though it looks like it's in the PD it's not so then different rules apply and so they would have to go by The General commercial standards so by resoning it into the PD um it allows it to be under the same rules and and a more um more continuity to the development now when you and and then you the only thing that you would have over there that's not in the PD would be the waffle out that's a little red box there so then you know we're adding increased area into the PD um

so accordingly there's increased commercial square footage to accommodate the increased acreage and also there's a parcel on knob cone that's that's affected as well we refer to it as the macki property because the Macky owned it when the developer purchased it under the original PD it automatically came in to plan development but it did not have any uses Associated to it so the general mod General development plan modification basically allows the uses on that parcel like the rest of the general development plan and these Parcels up here and that's probably just about as clear as mud but any questions for me and the developer is here I guess my only sort of question is how to how to get left out to begin with why is why is this a separate thing excellent question and the way I would answer that is before Tommy I I really don't know you know it is I I I don't know but I think that the development will run a lot smoother with it all being zoned the same play by the same rules Tommy and to be honest we it's easier on staff regulate I have a question related to density so if we Zone these Parcels into the rest of the plane development that's allowing them a greater density in the other areas for resid development correct because they're adding anage it's the same density it will be yes ma'am I believe it's the same density it's just you have more acreage there okay so you you'll have more

commercial Mr endler's here he can answer that probably better than me I'm Sean Smith with the Cranson engineer 452 LS stre austa Georgia um that uh red piece there is already General commercial when it gets rezoned to PD within the PD um its only land use is commercial so it won't affect any residential density at all we need to officially open the public comment um go ahead yes sir thank you commissioner bigger I'm John Engler I'm at 621 Northwest Frontage Road in Augusta Georgia and uh I want to actually want to thank staff uh the ability they cared for to talk about this with us because in one time there was talk of the original developer back 10 years ago including us in the PD and that's why there's some confusion but I want to thank cly and uh Mr Tommy over here for their Mr Paradise for their ability to kind of let us know but once we kind of dove into the specifics it made a lot of sense and there's a lot of continuity that will be able to go better between these two properties and it's just making it it's just it's just the right thing to do for the overall development any other questions for developer do we have any other uh comments or questions from from the public is there additional uh conversation uh around the the second part the uh plan

development modification we need to talk about uh this point okay I don't have anything for um and so what we have again hearing no other comments uh um what we have is this is um consideration uh for recommendation to city council is our challenge for this evening I can get a motion I'll make a motion to reone uh 2.59 Acres from General commercial to PD tax parcel number 0012000 one01 and 00121 002 located 1141 West martintown Road recommend resoning to council have a motion from Mr harberson to have second second second SL um all in favor say I please I he opposed okay that passed um we need to have comments on the second piece of this you may ask I I think has been asked and answer we will it's on the agenda um public hearing for pdm2 24-3 for the plan development modification um uh again for S same noted uh partial numbers um is there any additional comment from the developers on this seeing no additional public hearing we will um again need a a recommendation for consideration to uh recommend this to

city council I'll make a motion to recommend this uh pdm2 24-3 and I don't see any side notes to that conditions for that no no condition I have a motion from Mr Elliott do I have a second second second from Miss Slade all in favor say I I opposed passed unanimously thank you very much all right um moving into item number eight on the agenda the impact fees recommendation um again public hearing to solit solicit comments from citizens related to the adoption of impact fees for the city of North Augusta um these fees are charged to new development to support upgrades to the city's infrastructure and are generally play paid as requirement to obtain a building permit um again the what we have tonight is to determine if we want to make a recommendation to city council regarding uh the results of a capital Improvement program and impact fee study that was presented by tishler Bice Mr Paradise what else do you have to add to this evening's discussion um for just full transparency the um Mr Carson VI he presented to city counil and study session the program and that link to that YouTube was forwarded to all of the members of the Planning Commission and hopefully y'all had a chance to look at it if you'll indulge me I was going to

go I have a slide deck and was going to briefly go through that and have any questions that y'all may have and then you know get have your public hearing um but basically you may remember um it's been a couple years ago now 2023 you receiv received a re city council passed the resolution directing the Planning Commission to study the possibility of impact fees and along with that um the planning department had a RFP sent out evaluated those brought those to the Planning Commission and y'all concurred with us that he tishler Bice um company should move forward with u doing the study for us and Council concurred and issued the contract to him there was an amendment to the contract in that originally it did not include Parks and Recreation as we went through there um the consultant felt like there was some money there that the city should be receiving and that we would it would be in our best interest so city council amended that to include Parks and Recreation but what are the impact fees their one-time payment for growth related is usually collected at time of building permits it cannot be used for operations maintenance or replacement it doesn't go into the general fund it's not a tax but more like a contra contractual arrangements to build infrastructure with three requirements there has to be a need system improvements not project improvements

there has to be a benefit and has to be proportionate that is key you'll hear me talk about that throughout the presentation it has to be a proportionate share it's shared part of it shared by the people the existing community and then part of it shared by the development Community can I ask a question here at this point real quick sure the the need um that's an overall need that will pass this or that's not an individual basis per in this you're also recommending a capital Improvement plan in there there are specific projects and it may not say you know a sliding board at this park there's a certain amount of money that's put away for specific purposes and that is the need in 10 years we will need uh two additional garbage trucks that's a need in 10 years we'll need uh a certain amount of park space that's a KN B proportionate to the population projected population okay so that's what they mean by KN than cost recut there's three ways to do that cost recovery basically and this is what's being used for our um water and sewer calculations is where you have capacity that capacity cost x amount there's so much left so that you're paying back into the system in essence um they are the impact fee is reimbursing uh the taxpayers for their portion of that infrastructure there's incremental

expansion and we are not doing that that's not part of our plan and then there's the plan based the future that's the other formula that that we use and that's common for public facilities where you and what you do is it's proportionate share part of it's coming from the general fund or some other funding source and then part of it is coming from Impact fees impact fees in South Carolina they have to be in a separate interest pairing account it can't be co-mingled with the other funds it has to be spent within three years of the scheduled date of construction in in the CIP um they have to finance will have to do an annual report uh to change the fee requires an update of the study and it requires an analysis that estimates the effect of imposing U the fees on affordable housing I would say that the monies must be spent within three years of scheduled date of construction of the CIP this is very important under this current legislation if the city does not expend those funds within three years of the date on the CIP they have to refund though the money they have to reimburse the money to the people that they collected it from um the other thing is impact fees in South Carolina are uniform there's no exemptions it's across the board you can't pick and choose um different people that the impact fee um is imposed on it's either all or not so you can't exempt School District you can't exempt a church yeah it's it's you can't exempt public or or city facilities it's all

in so you site specific um developer um you have to look at there is there any credits that the developer would get site specific say they construct a fire station for this well you deduct that out you know they would that would lessen their impact and Debt Service you know you you make sure that they're not D that you're not double dipping all the way through this you're not double dipping same thing with the dedicated revenues with property tax and that kind of stuff you have your impact fees over here and everything else over here so what we're looking at is water Wastewater Parks and Recreation transportation and sanitation development projections and I find this interesting because this is kind of you know there there's the calculations that I've come up with and stuff and then here's this outside consultant with his so in 10 years he he's estimating uh an increase of 5,2 people and an increase of 2557 housing unit now I see Miss Slade shaking her head right now in our books on in in the pipeline we have about 10,000 residential units in the pipeline okay so there's significant impact from the development coming to North Augusta um non-residential in year increase is about 1,800 jobs and about 766 square feet of non-residential space right Parks and Recreation it's a Citywide

service so there's and none of these have you could do impact fees some people in some states like certain sections of the city none of those are section off this is Citywide so Parks and Recreation is a Citywide service um you got two components there the land that the parks are own and the park improvements the amenities so the cost are allocated the residential development at 100% And there the 10-year demand would indicate 300 or 31.25 acres of land and he's figured that out out at $787,000 for land investment and 12 improvements at $3 million now this is how he calculates it cost per person is $156 par amenities per person is $61 so it's a total of $750 $757 um per person single family there's two .12 per home so that's $1,600 Welter fames 1.2 so it's $910 I just want to ask a clarifying question here um I just want to make sure where we see per housing unit so for example if you build a single family home that's going to be one impact fee correct but if you build a 200 unit apartment complex it's going to be 200 impact fees it would be one fee okay you're and I say that you're right one check but that 900 110 would be multiplied by 200 okay thank you and when you get to the bottom line the bottom line will be multiplied by

200 so here is how he calculated that out um you'll get about 781 th000 for um land and about 3 million for amenities which give you about $3.7 million over 10 years in sanitation it's also Citywide service sanitation Vehicles they um you know it's a to be in the impact feed it has to be a capital Improvement above $100,000 so it's allocated 100% to residential development because that's where demand's going to be is where they going to be working um these aren't the commercial jobs trucks we're talking about and so there's 10 two vehicles at 455,000 so the fee component when he does that cost per person is 91.8 $918 Cent and he goes back you see the same numbers there per housing unit 212 and 120 you calculate the 91.8 by that and you get the 193 and 109 per unit and then that gives you over 10 years um about $455,000 to pay for the new garbage trucks for new routes what you don't see in here and cannot be in here is the Staffing of the Personnel on those trucks Transportation it's also a city wi service look at Street Maintenance vehicles and the improvements from that's some the um Master Transportation

plan U for the Arts and it's based on vehicle trips which makes it a little bit more complicated or it does and it doesn't all right these are the things that's on the transportation Capital Improvement plan for the Arts that comes out to about $51 million the five Notch Road widening from two to four lanes is $28 million that's an elephant in the room um so yeah that's a lot of money so anyway um Mr Paradise I'd like to clarify again sorry um so when we're looking at these numbers though this these proposed projects they're not based off of the idea of an impact fee we plan to move ahead with these projects regardless of whether or not part of the income comes from Impact fees these are in the uh Transportation comp U Capital Improvement plan to get them off the long range plan into the short range to-do list you have you need funding so without funding they stay on the they forever stay on the to-do list and they got transferred but you'll see here where in transportation it's the proportionate share so this is where the street sweepers come in the new street sweeper um residential development is um how was this street improvements are $380 per average week vehicle trip and then the street sweepers are 475 so was 384 comes down to $2,800 for a single family

997 multifam and then you get into the other development types in the calculation per square footage on the um type use that it is and that ties back to the U vehicle trips per day and this is where the projects lay out um the growth share for street sweepers or the is is is the Full Tilt because the additional streets uh the grow share for the uh Transportation improvements with everything is 8 8.7 million and the existing share the existing taxpayers not from the impact fee their match would be 43 million now does that where does that money come from if Council were to approve this they would be making um saying hey we're going to do this and we're going to find that funding source um that funding can come from wherever um Penny sales tax um God share I think they've changed the name off of it the state different funding sources and pull together to come up with that the largest one I think it is here nope the largest one is the um four laning of five not Road and that's why I refer to it as the bear in the room um then we get to the water and then this is the buyin approach and that's where the city has this capacity that they've paid x amount for and development will be reimbursing the city for the portion of that capacity that they're

using and so basically 25.9 million dollars for the water treatment plan they got 12 million gallons a day cost for a gallon of water is $216 and then this gives you it is based on on meter size because that goes back to your consumption table so 3/4 in meter would you would proposed fee of $46 one inch meter would be 167 or 679 and so forth the larger meter you have the more water usage you know impact you have Wastewater area it's the same same way would buying um we spent $6.5 million to buy 8.6 million gallons capacity in the Horse Creek Valley and that comes out to 76 Cent a Shar or 76 76 cents a gallon now this is buying existing capacity I'm going to go on a sidebar here a little bit and they are talking about expanding Horse Creek because the facility is full um there's no more capacity to be sold and it will be slightly under $11 a gallon so it'll be over $10 million to buy a million gallon capacity in the future um so the draft water impact fee

goes back to the 76 Cent a gallon average use is 144 3/4 in meters $109 so the impact fee summary would be for single family would be $46 Plus $516 for the water and waste water which will give you about 5100 $100 total for single family detached residence multif family would be less than that um at 2016 plus the five so it'd be about 2500 per unit and this is something that was not included in with the um I apologize for it not being larger this came from Carson but um two questions Council had was one is how many cities have in in South Carolina have impact p and two where do we fit in that so this is the other ones in the in the state that have impact fees now I will be tell I'll tell you I was doing a little searching on the internet before this meeting and I found a couple other towns that's not on this list that has impact fees so they're not uncommon in the state the other question was when we look at impact fees where do we rank in here so you see where North Augusta ranks in here now I was on discussion earlier this morning and pointed out to me that this

4600 does not include the water and the waste water so if you go to the 5100 it put but she did in the middle and so questions answers I appreciate y'all's Indulgence hopefully I've explained this right and sorry I have a couple more questions uh first question is I know at Council they also talked about um I guess for commercial we're using per th square feet but then for residential we're just delineating single family and multif family but there was some discussion about potentially being able to use square footage for residential as well and I wasn't sure if anything and if you notice he put a little footnote on there of all the ones that do impact Feats Mount Pleasant is the only one that uses that formula do we know why I don't um so I don't know if that is something that counsil is want to go in that direction or not even if y make the recommendation they could modify it but um but I thought that was interesting that there was only one and it was Mount Pleasant and you know Mount Pleasant is kind of unique in the growth area I'm just thinking the average new build in North Augusta is going to be sort of a standard square footage you're going to be in a box anyway so I don't know that that would affect too unless we get into really small which we don't have a ton of then my other question is this is only as it relates to new construction so if you purchased a house that was built in 1956 and completely gutted it and did got your permits and did your construction inside the home would you

pay an impact fee no thank you for the clarification I have a few questions um one of the comments I got and just sort of polling people about hey what how do you feel about this because I'm a resident but I'm also connected to the industry so just wanted to get a feeling from both and one of the comments um from the Builders Association was um sometimes maybe not referencing one of these folks but impact fees aren't used properly and that was their concern is they're setting this money aside or the city is so who I know I read in the notes the Planning Commission would approve anything that these are going to be mov or used for and that moves up but who is monitoring this threee account that's set off to the side is it who's who's watching this each year well our finance department our admin City administrator and Council just like any other money we use but this has to be set aside in separate fund and it is also there's a fiscal report annually that has to be reported so that would be reported by a finance director and of course I'm sure it would be part of the annual audit when the outside Auditors come through as well and is it you know I watched the presentation is it one of those things like okay if we if we funded this account and say you know we've got a number up you know a million dollars in there and we know we're not going to spend it within that three year we go ahead and order a street sweeper because we know we're going to need it I mean is this usually exhausted in that three years or do we know that you um I you know you're talking about a future question I I I don't know I don't see a spending money that we don't have but I also you know if the growth is there and that street sweeper remember

it would be an additional street sweeper it's not a replacement street sweeper I would think that we'd go ahead and purchase it because that is it's not all or none if if say the transportation portion didn't meet let's go back say you know any one of these could be funded there but not all of them maybe one of them didn't do so that portion would need to be refunded but that wouldn't but say a scaga lake was completed rgen Road was completed but none of the rest was completed well from there down would need to be refunded not the portion but not the 14 million that Mak sense okay so and as a mortgage lender I did the math because there was two different numbers in there it could be this at 2% or it could be this at 8% so I did a median this is what new construction selling for in North Augusta if we added five grand and it was about a assuming the Builder would pass it on to the consumer because affordability is obviously an issue um but in that price point thinking 360 is it was about3 $35 a month that was pretty close to one of his estimations but do we feel like with him estimating 5,000 in growth in 10 years does that hurt us does that help the Builder side I mean because that's a that's a lot number I mean it is well I think it would be the more is coming in the more it helps Finance the projects I don't think that hurts the thing that I have to go back to is um Mr

Carson he does this all day every day this is his Niche this is his specialty he's an expert at it so I'm not one to second guess him too much and then with this impact fee and maybe it's in here but I didn't see it do we just vote when it stops uh no count well it'll run to 10 years but Council will you know it is enacted by an ordinance and that ordinance would need to be repealed but there will need to be a capital Improvement plan so in 10 years I would think that we would need to update it okay that was all my questions thank you again just for my own clarification to make sure understand again looking at these numbers um again if if we recommend again our charges to recommend this to council we can recommend it as is we can recommend with just portions of the you know we could pick and choose parks and wreck and transportation out of this um we could change our recommendation to do all or all or none of these or whatever um but assuming we passed this um city council again they may they they would then have the option to obviously pick and choose parts of this if they wanted to just do parks and wreck and sanitation or whatever um but assuming right just for my own clarification if all this was adopted that $5,100 number for a single family home um right is is is added on for the construction of a single family home if they adopt Parks only it's only $900 addition to a home or whatever so that's the the 5100 would be the max it could be less if they chose to do three of the five or four of the five or something like correct and I do also remember from the council meeting just to clarify that

point as well that there were a couple issues where um he said this is the recommended cost per trip um with this example but you could pick 350 if you wanted to and so they can go through and say we're not actually going to do the whole 380 we are just going to do 350 per trip now the money doesn't magically appear from somewhere else but you can we can designate the amount necessary and and I will tell you and I agree that is what he said and Council has that Authority and y'all can certainly make a recommendation I will go back to the lady that gives us the training I can't think of her name and as she told me um you have to be careful there because then at the end of 10 years you don't have enough money to do the projects and you have no projects and refund the money and I wished I could remember her name but I'm bad with names y'all know who I'm talking about there any more questions before we open for public uh comment I would think the concern is obviously we don't want home prices to go up because of affordability but then I think when you get this price point you know if I was spending 140 that's one thing but if I'm spending 360 it's a little different but yeah interesting and you know if if I may there there's another way to look at it is how do you pay for it you know do you pay for it with impact fees where the new people pay a portion more so than the established people that's here or do you put it on the established people and spread it across the hole and it's just how you because the money is going to need to be there the

improvements going to need to be made it's just how do you fund them any other comments before we I'd like to officially open the uh meeting for public uh comments on the uh impact fee proposal is there anybody that would like to address this this evening thank you thank you Mr chairman Jason winter with I development uh 17578 Atomic road aen so if if you're not directly in the development business you may not realize the fees that we already pay to the city that I would say are impact fees anyway um preliminary plan review um it's $175 an acre when we bring in a subdivision plan maxes out at 14 acres Maxes that out at $2,500 so we're probably always just about getting $2,500 every time our site contractor before he starts site work has to pay a business license fee based on the um a percentage of what he's going to build so he's not going to eat that he's going to charge that back to us so to give you an example in force Bluff section one our site contractor paid $7,700 for a business license for that job which we paid him back for you got a fin a plat review fee $500 you got from the developer we have to post a performance and maintenance Bond those are two separate things that end the job that's real money as the banker in the room knows he loves to give those out right and with a no time frame tied to him but we have to have that amount of money set aside not you know I wish we could do a shity bond and just pay for an insurance policy but the city won't let us do that so again for Forest

Bluff that performance bond was $150,000 that we had to have additional to everything else in the development loan the maintenance Bond was $200,000 additional um we also pay a water and seac fee now when we pull a building permit per house that's [Music] $1,150 we also pay a building permit fee when we turn in a building plan and those are those are percentage based but they're roughly $2,000 a house we also have to do traffic studies on development in look at roads and intersections within one mile of our development and if there are any needed improvements then we have to pay for those or pay a proportionate amount which I know a lot of people a lot of developers have paid towards intersection improvements traffic signals those kind of things so when you talk about an impact fee of $5,100 well that's not that much but it's one more paper cut in that death by a th000 paper cuts right and it's not really $5,100 because that's a cost that goes into the um cost of that house we as home builders don't separate the cost we pay to the City versus our our labor and materials cost that's all lumped into the cost of that house then you put the the Builder um profit on top of that and then you put Real Estate Commission on top of that so it's not $5,100 at the end of the day it becomes a lot more these costs are always passed on excuse me to the build to the Buy higher in in different ways whether it's a price increase whether it's a reduction in the um um what they get in the house you know you go from a lot of granite countertops to now you get a lot of laminate countertops I mean there's ways that the buyer is going to pay or it's less that

we can pay the landowner so property values go down initially to offset that and then when you talk about the impact fee ammer over 30 years I think that's from a financially conservative government I think that's the wrong way to look at it because now you're paying instead of $5,100 you're paying $122,000 because you paid interest on that thing for 30 years now is that is that a wise thing to do I don't really want to borrow $5,000 to pay back another 12,000 um so I think that's for the consultant to include that in um in their report I think just it's it's it's probably not the right approach oh it's just $34 a month no big deal just pass it on to the buyer I think that's just the wrong way to explain that so you know we're the biggest gamblers around you know the home builders and the developers are if you want to put a few million dollars out there and and um hope that the market doesn't change in the lifespan of your project then it's great but the life you know the the market is going to change and it's going to go up it's going to go down and so the any of these economic impacts that we have we take pretty serious and then add on that over the last five years the construction cost for houses and site work is just about doubled so what North Augusta had initially property taxes paid the way then property taxes and business licenses paid the way then the one cent sales tax came along and that was the answer to everything right so he had property tax business license and 1% sales tax and now you got impact fees on top of that so where does it end and then the other thing is um I think the growth in our area it

seems like has exploded but Mr Paradise provided me permit numbers for the last 35 years for the city of North Augusta and excuse me from 19 97 to 2007 that was a good good run there were 2,43 building permits pulled in the city that was 11 years all right skip over the recession start back in 2014 to go 2024 that's another 11e span 2043 building permits pulled okay same amount hasn't gone up now it's gone up year and gone down a year gone up a year but but it's it's it's averaged right around 185 to 200 building permits even going back to the early 1980s so it hasn't been this huge Spike like everybody thinks and even if you go out further to our area aen County Richmond County Columbia County total 2001 to 2007 have 1,79 building permits pulled 7-year period all right the current 7-year period from 2018 to 2024 you have less building permits pulled you have 16535 so the numbers the number of houses in our area is staying the same it's and it's it's not you know there's only certain number of houses that are going to sell in this area I know Mr Paradise talks about and y'all know these big projects that have been approved are going through approval in North Augusta 8 or 10,000 units they're not going to be built tomorrow you know there's just not enough buyers these guys are smart um they're not going to put more houses on the ground that can be sold and so if you average a couple hundred houses a year in North Augusta it's probably going to stay that way now

you might suck some life out of aen County but it's still not you're still not going to take all of aen County into North Augusta so you're not I don't think you're going to get overrun by development um so I think that you know the financial shortfalls of the city and all these projects I think it's wrong to put them on the backs of that family that moves in tomorrow you know that there's if there's problems they exist today and I know Tommy talks about a proportionate share but it's still a a very heavy proportionate share that's proposed on new construction folks that are living in the city today are contributing to those shortfalls right now so you know I think it I think it needs to be looked at and shared in a more fair way and then my last question this is more Tommy if this thing passes how does it take effect like if I have a neighborhood and my grandfather in or exempt and then anything that comes past the day or is it any building permit that comes in past the time the ordinances and that would be based on how the ordinance is approved and the consultant I reached out to him today to actually draft the ordinance and I haven't received that it may be enacted when the ordinance passes it may be a pending ordinance Doctrine which after first reading it basically goes into effect or they could put it into effect um at some future date and I'm just saying say July one just because it's that's kind of start of fiscal year for somebody but then after typically it's issued at the when the building permit is issued so when you get your building permit is when it would be charged not development right um if if it was on a

development then the impact fee wouldn't go to on infill lots and it's important to capture everybody everybody pays their fair share so um it would be your building permit and that will be dependent on the language in the ordinance but just because you have a development that's underway uh the next time you pulled building permit after it was enacted after that effective date you'd have to pay the impact fee okay thank you I just I want to say that I kind of agree with what with the previous applicant just stated this will be passed on to the consumer and the businesses so I have a question from Mr Paradise as well so if this goes an effect on the development of I20 the hi does the same the public shopping center down the street will be exempt from that impact fee an impact fee is for new construction if there is new construction if the shopping center developed an out parcel then that would be subject for um to the impact fee if they were doing infield as far as upfitting a tenant space there's no New Impact to the community to get a fee from so so that will hurt future new developments that will come in so the way I figured it just on you know uh if you did half a million dollar half a million square foot development that' be about 2.3 million a little over 2.3 million in additional impacts which if you break that down per square foot would be $4.70 per foot that would be passed on to the nail salons and everybody else who's in town and then I can promise you that when everybody says they want this tenant or we talk to different people

about different commercial tenants those impacts will be stated and we'll just go across the road there's no reason to come northa I just want that to be that thank you is there anybody else that uh have a comment right we'll close the public hearing uh any other follow-up questions uh from the commission I just have a couple comments I just wanted to respond to a couple things make sure I'm clarified in what's going on so firstly the projects that we're talking about these are all anticipated issues that we will have over the next 10 years that will be contributed to by additional developments in our city correct correct okay so the proportionate share that they're paying is due to the proportionate impact that they will have on our city over the next 10 years not issues that we're causing right now right okay thank you and just kind of follow up on the comment too just from a factual standpoint I know we're calculating cost to a homeowner over time lives in our house 30 years anymore we we kind of wish they did but you know and and that's something I think about a lot too is what's the actual cost passed on and if the average homeowner lives in their house I think it's nine years now what what is that and it's it's up from what it used to be especially with the low rates from a couple years ago and then the other concern about you know permits pulled all that you presented I you know I'm sure is correct but we know the other side of the river with the infrastructure we know there's a limitation to that so I think it's going to push us this way fortunately unfortunately so maybe we're at a stagnant point or a flat point now but if you can't build and buy because you don't have water and sewer over there it has to come this way unless going to South Augusta I think so you know should

those numbers go up I realistically think you know we know we've got a lot in the queue will they actually get built is the question I think they I think they will so I think that's a real real number real future hurdle for us I would also like to add just as a city there's been major concern about the rapid growth within our city and there was even a consideration for a moratorium on apartment ments um at last city council meeting there is a moratorium there you go um and so I think this is one way to say uh look you can still build here but it is going to cost a little bit more because you are putting so much strain on our system um and so I think it is a fair way to say this is a business decision that you get to make whether or not you want to build here but these things are going to be necessary in our city and our citizens have concerns that additional development is going to put additional strain on the system that can't support it so it's important to understand that there are two sides to it of course the developer and new people coming into the city but there's also the people who already live here who own businesses here who work here who want someone to make sure that our city grows appropriately with the developments that are within it I'll add to what um Chelsea said so like for instance for the development I would hope that if this does pass through that I mean of course they're a business and they when you do a development you have what you expect to have your set cost like you said like your permits and things like that I hope there will be something worded in or a way to where like he has his development going and I'm sure he didn't budget for these impact fees to now be added on I hope that somewhere in there they can maybe start this in developments that aren't off the ground yet just because we do want to keep developers wanting to

come here and I feel like from a business side standpoint it would be very frustrating to me as a business owner if I have an ongoing development in the city limits and all of a sudden now if the house is not closed or the permits not pulled for the next phase that you're going to now impact them so I hope maybe they can come up with an agreement for the ones that are already started building um which I think in the city limits may only be for spuff left that's still Like Houses going up off the ground at this moment there might be one more Gregory Landing yeah I think those might be the only two so I don't know how to put that in there but I hope that Council or when they draft the ordinances that they'll at least take that into consideration if it do pass my two cents any other comments if not what we need is a recommendation for consideration um the recommend the city council again we as I raised the question earlier we can recommend it uh with with limitations or we can recommend as is in that city council um figure out the details on it you can ask another question Mr Paradise have they considered any other categories or is this the final number of categories they're planning to partiel out the money at at this point in time it's all that has been um surveyed they could always do an additional study and it would have to come back to the Planning Commission and get a recommendation and go through the

process before it was added on um there was specific reasons why they added Parks and Recreation not Public Safety that is because a lot of Public Safety financing needs is being addressed through the penny sales tax so you you know you want to make sure that what the money that you're putting on that you're asking for is what you need for the projects and you don't get too much I need a motion I will make a motion to recommend to city council that we improve the impact fee um with uh a recommendation that they pay special attention to how exactly they enact the ordinance um and what it means for people who are currently underway with developments um um Y what was that is what I how about the current developments what was that wording there I just wanted to recommend to city council that they pay special attention with the ordinance to um how they enact it and when and to what degree it affects people who are currently in development process gotcha have a motion second second all right U call to to vote all in favor say I I opposed I one [Music] opposed thank you very

much um we will staff report uh Tommy give us an update on what your Department's been doing you know I forget about this every month I really don't have anything except um we did um sign off on the um Valene site plan today we have signing off on a site plan modification for the for three of the parcels down in Riverside Village and um where they're building the apartments and we'll be signing off [Music] on Raven Mill in the morning I do have a question if we're doing moratoriums and impact fees did we ever decide on the lighting on the signs we said we were to come back to that but did we ever that was last year okay I just okay just um and we can certainly do that I need to bring back some more things um to the Planning Commission go I need to go back through the ordinance as well but if that's something you want me to bring back I will um that was kind of resolved with bza that particular issue so that's something that if y'all want to talk about it on the brander scale it's I I just thought we were going to revisit it and I didn't recall us bringing it back up okay I have I've been remissed well again we thank you and your department for all the the work that you've been doing uh behind the scenes that uh that we don't get to see on a daily basis but appreciate the the prep work for tonight thank the other Commissioners and and

thank the public for for your attention tonight we adjourn the meeting it's