Florida Home Builders Push For Impact Fee Cap
The Florida Home Builders Association threatened this week to withhold contributions to legislative candidates who don’t sponsor legislation it wants regarding impact fees.
The group, hurt by sagging Florida mortgage demand and home sales, seeks caps on what it calls “skyrocketing impact fees” by local governments.
FHBA president John Wiseman said online that the home builder’s political action committee decided to make contributions to incumbent candidates “only after their name appears as a co-sponsor on impact fee legislation that will be filed for the 2008 session.”
The builder group’s PAC also is withholding contributions to parties, leadership funds and other political committees until a task force develops criteria for making such contributions.
Senate President Ken Pruitt said he was appalled by the message and urged his members not only not to endorse the legislation but to return any contributions they already have gotten from the home builder association or associated PACs.
“I’m truly appalled by it. The Senate is not an auction where the highest bidder wins. It just doesn’t work that way,” said Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie. “This is not the kind of code of conduct tolerated in the Senate.”
Incumbent Rep. Bill Galvano, who is up for reelection next year and has frequently sponsored bills limiting impact fees in the past, said he was disappointed to see Wiseman’s message as well.
“I just don’t think someone thought it through when they posted that,” said Galvano, R-Bradenton.
“It reads as a quid pro quo and that’s not right. It’s wrong and I don’t want to take a contribution from them regardless of what bill I do if that’s how they’re going to make contributions.”
The home builders tried, unsuccessfully, to get a cap on impact fees in the property tax reform discussed during the general and special sessions.
It fears that the tax reform that was passed will mean even higher impact fees and even slower Florida home mortgage demand, ultimately hampering home sales even more drastically in the Sunshine State.
“We know, as a result of property tax reform, that local governments will lose valuable revenue and they will look to new home construction impact fees as a source for making up those lost dollars,” Wiseman said. “The avalanche of increased fees is already being seen throughout Florida.”
FHBA spokeswoman Edie Ausley defended the association’s position and said the builders want to reduce impact fees because costs are passed on to buyers and make affordable housing virtually impossible to construct.
“This is a litmus test. If you support affordable housing and are willing to make that commitment, then we can support you,” Ausley said.
Government advocates say such threats are common behind the scenes, but open comments such as those on the home builders’ Web site are unusual.
“If these corporations can buy votes just blatantly like that… it shows that the system is broken,” said Common Cause Florida executive director Ben Wilcox.
SOURCE: Palm Beach Post
