A Granville County commissioner tried, but failed this week, to get his colleagues to support his proposal to impose what would have been, in effect, an impact fee on new homes in Granville County. Commissioner Hubert Gooch’s idea was to institute an adequate public facilities ordinance (APFO) for schools. Imposing this type of fee on homebuilders is done in other counties, as Locke Foundation Director of Research Michael Sanera explains in this recent Spotlight paper. APFOs are used by counties to generate revenue for various infrastructure since they don’t have legal authority — unless it’s given to them by the General Assembly — to impose direct impact fees on homebuilders. So far, only Chatham and Orange counties have gotten legislative permission for direct impact fees. Durham County tried an end-run around the legislature in 2003, but the N.C. Court of Appeals put a stop to what it determined was an illegal impact fee. According to the story:
Durham County officials had imposed a similar impact fee in years past, and collected some $8.3 million. But the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in 2006 that the fees were levied illegally on homebuilders.
Appellate judges said county commissioners acted illegally in September 2003 when they passed a law requiring builders to pay a $2,000 impact fee for each new house and $1,155 for each new townhouse or apartment.
