Osceola County Proposes Increased School Impact Fees and Outlines Application Timeline for Avoiding New Mobility Fees

On January 16, 2018, the Osceola County School Board voted to approve new school impact fees for all residential developments. The proposed ordinance — which has not yet been passed by the Osceola County Board of County Commissioners (the “County”) — will increase the impact fees for most categories of residential development but will provide an exemption for vacation rental units or “Vacation Villas” (as they are defined Sections 509.242(1)(c) and 509.013(4), Florida Statutes). Additionally, units that qualify as “Short-Term Rental” property — that is, residential units that are used for less than 30 days per year by the same individual — will be subjected to a lower fee.

The County has not yet announced when the new ordinance will be heard by the Board. Once the ordinance is passed, it will become effective 90 days after the ordinance is adopted and will not apply to any building permits obtained before that date. The current draft of the ordinance can be found here. The proposed school impact fee changes are outlined in the table below.

Proposed School Impact Fees
Residential Category	Current Fee (per dwelling unit)	Proposed Fee (per dwelling unit)	Proposed Fee for Short-Term Rentals (per dwelling unit)
Single Family Detached	$10,187	$11,823	$6,264
Townhouse	$10,187	$7,591	$3,951
Multi-Family	$6,088	$11,362	$7,033
Condominium	$6,088	$4,243	$2,325
Mobile Home	$6,013	$7,672	$7,672

In addition, on January 8, 2018, the County passed an ordinance that hikes up mobility fees for all categories of new development. The new ordinance increases mobility fees for several categories of development by nearly double the current rates. The final ordinance can be found here.

Developers may continue to pay the current mobility fee so long as they obtain building permits before May 1, 2018. To guarantee that building permits are issued by the May 1 cut-off, developers must submit their applications for commercial building permits (including multi-family) by March 9, 2018 and for residential building permits by March 23, 2018. Any permits issued on or after May 1, will be subject to the new, increased mobility fees. Please note that all associated applications or projects, including subdivision plans, site development plans, construction permits, lot splits, etc., must be approved prior to the approval of the building permit. Additionally, for those applications requiring revisions or responses to staff comments, developers must submit revisions or responses within 5 business days for residential permits and 10 business days for commercial permits from the date of the initial comments by staff.