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Home My WebLink AboutItem J2 J2 BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COUNTY of MONROE Mayor James K.Scholl,District 3 The Florida Keys Mayor Pro Tern Michelle Lincoln,District 2 Craig Cates,District 1 David Rice,District 4 Holly Merrill Raschein,District 5 Board of County Commissioners Meeting May 21, 2025 Agenda Item Number: J2 2023-3995 BULK ITEM: No DEPARTMENT: Building and Permitting TIME APPROXIMATE: STAFF CONTACT: Ed Koconis N/A AGENDA ITEM WORDING: Discussion and Direction Regarding Waiving of Permit Fees for Affordable Housing. ITEM BACKGROUND: Sec.6-108(e) of the Monroe County Code states, in part, that any entity may apply to the board of county commissioners for fee waivers from the building permit and building permit application fees for construction or renovation of affordable, low or very low income housing intended for occupancy for those households with income up to 120 percent of the median annual adjusted gross income as defined by Monroe County. Sec. 6-108. - Fees. (a) Purpose. The purpose of this section is to establish the authority, schedule, and exemptions for permitting and related fees. (b)Authority and fee schedule. Except as specifically established by this chapter, the board of county commissioners may by resolution establish a fee schedule for, but not limited to, permit applications, permits, plans examination, certificates of competency, re-inspections, permit renewals, administrative fees, variance requests, and administrative appeals. (c) Required. Except as authorized by this chapter, no permit shall be issued without payment of all appropriate fees. Where a nonrefundable application fee is charged, the fee may be applied to off-set the total permit fee at the time the permit is issued, except where the application fee exceeds the total permit fee. In this case, the application fee shall become the total permit fee. (d)Exemptions. Exemptions only exist as specifically provided by state statute and for volunteer fire departments. (e) Waivers. Any entity may apply to the board of county commissioners for fee waivers from the building permit and building permit application fees for construction or renovation of affordable, low or very low income housing intended for occupancy for those households with income up to 120 percent of the median annual adjusted gross income as defined by Monroe County. Persons or entities which have 2840 a development order in effect as of February 17, 2010 for affordable housing may apply for such fee waivers. Persons or entities building affordable housing which uses a higher percentage median income than 120 percent for qualification for occupancy may apply for a waiver from building permit and permit application fees only if the specific project for development is being subsidized with or is leveraging state or federal funding. All such waivers apply only to the individual housing units being constructed. There are no other waivers of permit fees. (D Refunds. No fees paid for permit fees shall be refunded without the approval of the Building Official with concurrence from the planning director. Section 1264(h)(6) of the Monroe County Land Development Code exempts all affordable housing, up to 120 percent of the median annual adjusted gross income as defined by Monroe County from paying impact fees. See the code following: (h) Type of development not affected. (1) Replacement residential units. Redevelopment or rehabilitation which replaces but which does not increase the number of legally permitted dwelling units above that existing on the site prior to redevelopment or rehabilitation. (2) Replacement nonresidential developments. Redevelopment or rehabilitation which replaces, but which does not increase the legally permitted floor area above that existing on the site prior to redevelopment or rehabilitation nor changes the use to one which has a greater impact-producing effect with respect to any capital improvement than that existing on the site prior to redevelopment or rehabilitation. (3) Public capital improvements (as defined in Section 11-1). (4) Public buildings (as defined in Section 10 1-1) owned and operated by agovernmental agency which is statutorily exempt from the payment of locally-adopted impact fees. (5)Any other use, development, project, structure, building,fence, sign or other activity that is not impact-producing. (6)Affordable or employee housing units (as defined in Section 11-1)for which a deferred payment of impact fees has been recorded in the chain of title. The amount of these fees typically not being assessed for types of impact fees is $1,078 ($633/Transportation; $340/Parks; $105/Fire;per single-family home or $875 ($430/Transportation; $340/Parks; $105/Fire)per multi-family dwelling unit. These exemptions were created years ago when the State of Florida and other granting agencies gave extra points when developers were competing for grants, if the local governments also exempted some of their fees as a contribution to affordable housing. Since that time, the State of Florida, specifically for the Low Income Housing Tax Credits and SAIL programs, have changed their scoring. Staff have corresponded with the State of Florida to determine whether the County waiving permit fees or impact fees still gives developers points toward their grants. During recent conversations with the Director of Allocations, Multi-Family Programs at Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC), it was confirmed that only certain Requests for Applications (RFAs) contain points for Applicants who receive waived fees from local governments, and that for 2841 2024 projects proposed in Monroe County only RFA 2024-205 had these points available. For this RFA any project would need to have a contribution of at least $10,000 to achieve the maximum of 5 points, and that there have been no discussions of changing this amount for RFA 2025-205, and she expects it to remain the same. In other words, the County no longer needs to waive permit fees for affordable housing for the projects to receive the maximum number of points from the State to win grant or tax credits in their annual process. Attached is a table that demonstrates the permit fees waived over the past decade. You can see the County has waived $3,366,638 in fees since 2015. These waivers, while encouraging affordable housing development, can leave the Building Department revenue in a shortfall, even though the Building Department has to continue to review the affordable housing permits and inspect those same structures. Further, by waiving this revenue, it means the Building Department doesn't have the amount of revenue it needs to support the operations and staffing, thereby impacting the services provided to the construction industry. Staff conducted a review of recent projects in Monroe County that applied for FHFC program funding. These include: • The Landings at Sugarloaf with expected waived permit fees of about $475,000 and $49,000 in impact fees; • Dickerson with about $157,704 in permit fees and $17,500 in impact fees; • Coco Palms with about $277,631 in permit fees and $25,000 in impact fees. In each of these cases the total amount of fees waived far exceeds the minimum amount of$10,000 per development that would have been required to be waived to receive the maximum number of points through RFA 2024-205 to gain funding approval. In each of these examples waiving of the impact fees alone would be enough to earn the Applicants the maximum 5 points. Therefore, staff is recommending the Board consider eliminating the waiver of building permit fees and direct staff to bring forward an ordinance amending the code to accomplish this directive. PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION: N/A INSURANCE REQUIRED: No CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES: N/A STAFF RECOMMENDATION: Direct staff to process an amendment to Chapter 6 eliminating building permit fee waivers, while maintaining impact fees waivers in Chapter 126. DOCUMENTATION: Waived Permit Fees 2015-April2025.pdf 2842 FINANCIAL IMPACT: Actual amounts cannot be determined. Any decreases in amount of building permit fees waived would result in an increase in revenue to the Building Fund. 2843 Waived Permit Fees 2015-April 2025 Amount Waived by Date Approved and Project/Applicant Name BOCC(Estimated) Item#-OR-Resolution Number Future Investments of KW, LLC $23,422 9/16/2015 Habitat for Humanity of the Upper Keys $7,165.83 10/21/2015 H39 Habitat for Humanity of Key West/LK $47,242.87 5/17/2017 H13 Quarry Apartments $615,519.32 1/17/201817 Carico, Inc./Henderson $30,418.06 1/17/201816 Habitat for Humanity of Key West/LK $84,088.00 5/16/201817 Florida Keys Community Land Trust $25,374.00 6/20/201817 Habitat for Humanity of the Upper Keys $4,824.00 6/20/201819 Florida Keys Community Land Trust $29,500 8/15/2018 K5 Florida Keys Community Land Trust $7,500 9/19/201814 Longstock 11 LLC $85,200 028-2019 Habitat for Humanity of the Upper Keys $6,062.80 117-2019 Monroe County Land Authority $94,680 193-2019 Monroe County BOCC $172,896 199-2019 Monroe County BOCC(tiny homes) $18,725 377-2019 Mobile Homes Coco $57,721 094-2020 Mobile Homes Holdings Suncrest $28,856 095-2020 Quarry Big Coppitt $192,381 151-2020 Wrecker's Cay $530,712 396-2020 Conch Republic Housing Alliance $105,641 059-2021 Tom Ryan $18,749 264-2021 South Cliff Holdings/RiehlAlice $211,215 265-2021 Habitat for Humanity of the Upper Keys $8,802 395-2021 Monroe County Housing Authority $17,808 473-2021 Florida Keys Community Land Trust $7,455 025-2022 Mobile Homes Coco $210,830 492-2023 Dickerson Coppitt $157,704 490-2023 Habitat Lower Keys $90,446 185-2024 The Landings at Sugarloaf $475,700 142-2025 Total Estimated Waived (last 10 years) $3,366,638 2844