Thursday, October 18, 2007

School Impact Fees for Retirement Communities?

So, here is the topic that I pose for feedback. As always reply on here, email me, or call me.

Recently developers with pending retirement communities have faced a new dilemma while bringing their projects before municipalities. Retirement communities generally have an age restriction of 55 or older. So, the question is should such a development, many of them large scale, be required to pay school impact fees?

Impact fees are often accepted by developers as the price of doing business. However, if a retirement community that is guaranteed to have no impact on the school district is proposed in a municipality, should they be required to pay school impact fees? The municipalities can argue that the residents of the retirement community could act as a voting block against future school referendums or they might argue that a community could change the age requirements in the future thus creating a direct impact on the school districts. Are these legitimate arguments?

A similar case was heard by the Florida Supreme Court back in 2000. The court ruled in favor of the developer. In the annexation agreement in FL the properties were deed restricted which made it nearly impossible for the age requirement to be changed at a later date. However, some developments don't use deed restrictions but rather include the age requirement as part of the development's by laws, which could easily be changed and have in some cases in Illinois.

So, should a retirement community of 55 yr old or better residents with deed restricted properties be required to pay school impact fees?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being there is no impact-then an impact fee should be unconstitutional- its bad enough that the schools will get approx 66% of the property tax bill. If the villages created a more friendly enviroment for developemnt, maybe the age restricted communities be relocated

Anonymous said...

I do not think that Active Adult Communites should be subject to impact fees. If the municipalites get away with this, then the title should be changed to say ah... "Another way to dig into the taxpayers' pocket Fee"

Anonymous said...

When those people moving to the retirement communities today had children everyone helped pay for their kids to have a good education including the retired people around them. Why should they get a free pass now just because they don't currently have school aged children? Just because the whole community doesn't have children doesn't mean they should get a pass.

Jeff Metzger - Director Govt. Affairs said...

I think this is a great discussion. Anonymous from 7:52AM Saturday. I think it is important to remember that the residents that would live in this type of a development would still pay taxes to the school district as would anyone else owning a home. So, without an impact fee for schools, they would still be paying into the system. Just as people did when they had children in school.

Anonymous said...

That is understood, but if every other new home in the community pays an impact fee then the same should apply to the senior lifestyle communities.

Jeff Metzger - Director Govt. Affairs said...

Well, I think we will agree to disagree in this topic. However, that is the great thing about this forum. I will pose the following to scenarios to you. 1. If you don’t use the Illinois Toll way, should the state still require you to pay a toll for the use of the toll way simply because you live in Illinois? 2. Should you be required to pay a tobacco tax even though you buy tobacco products or use them? My point again here is that impact fees are fees charged to those who have an IMPACT on something.


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