If IT is good with me moving on to the water and wastewater impact fees public workshop number two, I will do so.

Yes, ma'am.

All right.

Good afternoon.

Um, welcome back.

And um, there will be no action or vote taken by the board today.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to you, Mr.

Cassidy.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

This is the second of two workshops, the proposed increases to the water and wastewater impact fees.

Uh, the workshop today is dedicated to the extraordinary circumstances necessitating the need to exceed the phase in limitations for the South Central Service Area.

Uh, today giving our presentation is going to be Lisa Ray, our water resources department director, along with our impact fee consultant, uh Justin Grant with Stantec.

They will make a brief presentation and then we will follow up with the board discussion.

Lisa.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Uh Lisa Ray, Director of Water Resources.

Uh, we appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

So, HTV is going to be doing our presentation for us.

So, I'll be asking them to move on to the next slide, please.

So, we are here to talk about impact fees, but just as a high level, what are they?

And they're a one-time fee paid to connect new customers or construction to help cover the costs of expanding the water and the wastewater service to those new customers.

In a sense, it's so that growth pays for itself.

Next slide, please.

A quick overview of the system that we currently manage.

Hillsborough County Water Resources has two very separate utility systems.

Up in the Northwest area, we have a water and wastewater system that is pretty well developed.

Uh, does not have a tremendous amount of growth, and the plants have sufficient capacity to handle the projected growth.

However, in the South Central area, we're dealing with a very different circumstance.

The amount of growth that we have seen in the South Central area has been extraordinary.

And we are having to add significant number of projects and capacity in order to accommodate the needed services for the new residents.

Next slide, please.

And can you please hit forward twice?

So up in the Northwest, we're able to use the incremental phase-in approach as required under the Florida Impact Fee Law.

Since the water is less than 25%, and the wastewater increase is between 25 and 50.

However, in the South Central area, with the large projects and the tremendous amount of growth, we're needing to look at an increase that is greater than 50%.

Because of that, we are required to demonstrate a need for this additional increase.

That requires a study, along with two publicly noticed workshops.

And this is the second of those two workshops.

In the end, we will be taking the resolution to the board.

Um, however, at this time we're going to focus on what the needs are that are justifying the extraordinary circumstance.

And to help us with that, I am going to ask Justin to talk about the study that Stantech conducted.

So next slide, please.

Justin, if you would like to start as a part of this impact study, I was in that worst finding demonstrated need study was also completed that identified multiple extraordinary circumstances.

Can you guys hear me?

Um initially it was a little low, but it got better.

So you might want to hear me okay right now.

Yes.

All right, perfect.

All right, I'll restart that.

Thanks for the introduction, Lisa.

Appreciate that.

And yes, as you mentioned, this is the second of two hearings.

So uh commissioners, thank you very much for listening to the same presentation again today.

And for all of you others that are listening over the first time, we'll try and be brief and go through this.

So, as a part of the impact fees study that was conducted, a corresponding demonstrated needs study was also completed that identified multiple extraordinary circumstances that merit the condition of adjusting current fees beyond phase in limitations.

The fundamental revolve around three issues.

The county's nearing capacity of two wastewater treatment plants, and effectively is it at capacity of one of its water plants in the South Central service area during dry weather conditions.

Driven by historical growth rates that are expected to continue in the near term that are driving the need for additional facilities that provide capacity.

And finally, the cost and magnitude of these expenses, the nature of these facilities that are required is substantial.

The next slide, I'll dive into each one of these three components more significantly.

On the next slide, I'll dive into each one of these three components more significantly, highlight some data that can give some context to each of them.

Excellent.

Okay, from simple demand data observations have indicated that since 2020, the system is seeing about 22% in demand growth.

And if you look back prior to 2020, these figures are even more substantial.

Moving to the center of the chart here, cost increases have also had a dramatic impact on planned projects.

The metal charter is an example of comparison of actual projects completed pre and post-COVID as Unicosts have seen over 300% increase in the cost to construct this infrastructure.

And finally, as we mentioned regarding capacity, really out of capacity of the lithium water plant in dry weather conditions and during normal conditions is projected to be out of capacity in the next few years.

A similar story applies to the two wastewater plants pictured in the bottom right corner of this chart to be effectively out of capacity in the next few years as well.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So with that population growth, there's an increase in demand.

And 57,000 of the population growth is in the South Central Service Area.

This has driven the substantial increases in demand we've highlighted previously.

As you can see in the chart here depicting growth in the water demand on the system, this increase in demand ties back to the diminishing capacity remaining in the system.

Next slide.

Now if we look at the unit costs of construction, constructing additional capacity, it's changed significantly over the past few years.

Using some example projects for pipeline and wastewater treatment plan expansions provided by the county's engineering staff.

We've seen unit cost increases of over 300% for treatment projects and over 200% for pipeline projects in just the past couple of years.

Next slide.

What this has resulted in is a significant significant amount of system investment requirements.

I'll pause here and note that this chart is in billions of dollars, which we can't emphasize enough as the magnitude and put this in perspective.

The current entire utility system after depreciation has a net book value of approximately 1.8 billion as illustrated by the small blue bar in the left bottom left corner of the chart.

Over the next few years, the planned capital investment in both renewal and replacement, R, and the expansion projects is over two times that amount.

And just looking at the expansion-related infrastructure that totals two billion over the next few years alone.

And that's the equivalent of constructing an entire another utility system.

And the magnitude of these expenses to serve growth and provide additional capacity are truly extraordinary.

And of that $2 billion in expansion projects, as you can see there in the highlight in the bottom right corner of this slide, uh, over 98% is in the South Central Service Area.

And so I'll take a minute here to turn it back over to Lisa so she can highlight three of those notable projects that are included in the $2 billion.

I'm sorry, I was muted still.

Um next slide, please.

So these are projects that many of you have already heard about.

Um the South Wastewater Conveyance and Treatment Project is the single largest project that the county has ever undertaken.

This is a 1.15 billion dollar investment into a new wastewater treatment plant, associated pipelines, and a super lift station to convey the wastewater to the brand new facility, which, as you saw from the prior slide, the two of the existing plants in the South Central Service Area are at capacity.

We are required to protect public health and safety, provide these types of services, make sure that these new plants are built.

Next slide, please.

In parallel with expanding the wastewater system, we also need to explain finish expanding the drinking water system.

There have been several projects that have been delivered over the last few years, including additional pipelines, some booster pump stations.

And this is the one fine, one of the final pieces to the puzzle.

This is a half a billion dollar new water treatment plant that will be situated in the fast growing boom area.

We are coordinating the placement of the plant and the timing of construction with Tampa Bay Water since they have a new pipeline that will be drink brinking bringing drinking water down to this area.

And at this next board meeting, we will be asking the board to approve the design phase for this project.

And the next slide talks about the Falkenburg wastewater treatment plant.

And this is one of our existing facilities that is nearing capacity.

We are finishing up bringing it to 15 million gallons per day.

But even with bringing it to the 15 million gallon per day within the next three to four years, it will be out of capacity again.

And at this point, we have about a hundred million dollars scheduled to finish the 15 MGD increase, but we will need additional increase in the future, which has not been planned yet.

And with that, those are just three of the main ones that are driving the need in South Central.

So I'm going to go ahead and turn this back over to Justin and let him talk some about what we're proposing.

Sure.

Thanks, Lisa.

Yeah, the project uh context is extremely helpful.

And so we just heard about three of those main projects totaling about 1.7.

And you can go to the next slide, by the way, uh administrator.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Uh about 1.7 of that $2 billion expansion we looked at earlier.

And so as such, you can see the associated fees per uh equivalent residential connection ERC are about $500, $5,865 there in the South Central region.

And so given that these new facilities that are in process are being designed to serve uh for new growth.

This provides the basis for these updated fees.

That updated cost is a result of our study, and the project data provided is about $13,270 uh dollars per ERC.

Hence the the reason we're here uh discussing extraordinary circumstances.

Also notable on the left side of this chart.

Well, it's not the topic of today's hearing.

This impact fee analysis did also conduct uh a study for the Northwest Service Area and where there is still some remaining capacity to serve growth.

That fee was based on the current cost of existing infrastructure in the areas adjusted to today's dollars and accounting for depreciation.

The good news here is that those fees can be implemented under the current limitations of the Florida Impact Fee Act.

Next slide.

All right, as you can see, the fee adjustments for South Central are significant in light of the extraordinary circumstances.

We wanted to take a moment to discuss the uh the failure to acknowledge these circumstances and to move forward with updated fees has significant impacts in South Central Service Area and on the county as a whole.

The failure to acknowledge extraordinary circumstances in the service area could have a variety of financial impacts based on current growth projections.

This could accumulate to approximately 200, 250 million in revenue losses over the next 10 years.

If funding for growth related infrastructure was not able to be addressed through growth related fees, it could create philosophical issues as it would have to come through other mechanisms like rates, additional borrowing.

This could also result in additional impacts to the overall utility financial health, including credit ratings, interest rates, and added borrowing.

We just want to make take a moment to highlight some of those things in consideration, consider consideration, and I'll turn it back over to Lisa to discuss the next steps in the timeline.

So next slide, please.

So the timeline moving forward is uh pretty aggressive.

We are finishing the second public notice workshop right now as we speak.

We will be holding the public hearing at the December 17th Board of County Commissioners regular meeting.

It's scheduled for 10 a.m.

to consider the impact fee rate adjustments.

And that will be a public hearing where we will be taking comment if there is comment.

Uh and then pending board approval or board direction at that point.

We will uh begin preparations for implementation in sept in the spring of 2026.

At this point, it looks like that will probably be late March.

And with that, I thank you for your attention, and we'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Justin Lisa and George.

I know yesterday and yesterday's uh meeting, both uh Commissioner WhatsApp mentioned that they wanted to comment.

I'm not sure which one of you would like to go first.

Harry's far more eloquent than me.

He can start first.

Then we'll start with Commissioner Cohen.

Um thank you.

I'm gonna call it brief.

Um what I want to say are two things.

Um there's a question that we need to do this, it's very important.

And uh philosophically, I agree that new growth pay for itself.

I'm concerned that the cramp in the county extremely pain to influence all at once, and I think that we should consider some sort of basin in that of the uh of the county thing that you're gonna raise.

I was trying really hard to get what you're saying there, but I don't think your audio is quite good enough.

Can we um pause your thoughts?

And I'm really sorry because I'm sure it was eloquent as Commissioner Whites.

Can we jump to him and have him fix your audio?

Sure.

I can't understand you either.

And if and if Lisa, you could unmute your mic.

That would help.

Should we try again?

Let me see.

Go ahead.

Maybe everything should be.

Um is that any further?

It's not better for me.

What about and I don't know where tech um let me let me try to mute everybody's mics to uh uh instead of uh Commissioner Oll.

Let me see if that fakes it one second.

Okay, Commissioner uh Cohen, if you can turn off your webcam, that might help improve the bandwidth.

Is that better?

It does seem to be a little better.

Doesn't sound much better to be that better, not sure.

Yeah, I I don't go ahead and try and talk, Commissioner.

Okay.

Can you understand me now?

It does sound better if you can keep resuming, yeah.

Okay, well let me let me see if I can try again.

Feel free to you know, I can already can't understand.

Um I'm not sure to do.

Uh Commissioner, do you want to maybe your works?

Sorry, they they muted me as well.

Um, can I I'm sorry, I cannot understand you.

If I can understand you, then the public probably can't either, and I would really like to hear, so I'm not sure if they can fix it, or perhaps you can come down to one of our offices and and why not do this.

You can do that if somebody's working.

Chris Pina here's working, I'll come down to your office.

Yep, that'll be perfect.

I'm just gonna walk in.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

We're gonna give Commissioner Cohen a minute to get down here and let him jump into somebody's office.

I'm not sure if it was on his end.

Staff might want to mute his computer because it's still giving feedback.

Come on, yeah.

Let's see if this works.

All right.

Is this any better?

Mark better.

Okay.

What I was going to say is that um obviously we need very much to do this work.

It's very important, and the growth demands it.

Tampa Bay Water is already our partner in some of it.

Uh my concern is that with ramping these fees up without um imposing it all at once without any kind of phase in is going to increase the cost of a new home by like $13,000 starting on January 1st of next year, according to my understanding of how this will work.

And I think that given the crisis in homeownership, given the expense of things and the fact that this is most likely going to be passed directly on to consumers, we need to find a way to um to do something more similar to what's been proposed in the northwest part of the county.

So that is my that's my first uh statement about it.

The second is that um we really need to we are in a the beginnings of another drinking water emergency that will probably lead Swift MUD to impose a one day a week watering ban on residential properties fairly soon notwithstanding the recent rains that we've had as Commissioner Wastel knows we're we're behind and we're rapidly approaching the point where there's going to be imposed conservation methods.

The city of Tampa after the last time that we had that did not go back to two day a week watering they remain at one day a week and if everyone remembers um 50% of our potable water use is irrigation.

So making an adjustment like that could really help us reduce our consumption of water which would also be something that would help us in terms of the bottom line of this whole project so those are really my my two general comments about it the main thing being that I just think there needs to be a uh a phase in of this and not impose it all at once and Commissioner Wussel um you can go ahead great um George you and I had a a conversation that I'll dive into a little bit now and colleagues will just have to hear me repeat it um during the actual adoption hearing on the 17th but um that's going back to the rate study that I mentioned that 50% of it for our annual for a monthly water bill um was found to actually be increases for new users meaning one water.

Is that correct?

Is that what was established at that past meeting?

You know, Commissioner when um when we when we talked about that and the raftellus statements I'm gonna have to go back and review what Raphtellus said because I'm not sure um that I recall that um and and I trust that you heard what you heard right but I you know in terms of recovering cost for capital construction we rely on our impact fees to do that we don't rely necessarily on on user rates to do that but but with that said I'd like to go back and review that um that that discussion okay because right now one water we're saying is we've been saying for years it's paid for it's paid for bonding right well it's going to be paid for with bonding that we haven't secured yet but yes it is paid for through borrowed money um when you go back and review that and you hear him say that my question is going to be that 50% of those increases were in fact for new users and this is to actually capture the costs of those new users I want to hear what the plan is from the water department to phase down those increases that were said to be increased for new impacts once we start capturing impact fees that's that's my first point my second thing is that I want this easier to understand on who how many units are we saying is going to pay for this and you and I did a quick math scenario and I'd like to um rework through that math exercise which is how did we get to um this amount of money per house you must know how many predicted households we're going to um be able to grow it's we're planning for right this one water is for planning for new growth not just existing customers so we must know how many new households we're planning for what's that number so uh you're absolutely right so our planning staff works very closely with the planning commission staff and other planning groups to look at what the forecast is what's the current anticipated growth capacity with the current land use that we have today we don't project into the future to play the what if game you know what if there's a comprehensive plan amendment that adds more urban space we look at the existing uh land use and look at what the the possibilities are for added uh rooftops and so we look at that and we project into the future um as we mentioned before we're planning on building a 24 million gallon per day wastewater treatment plant if you look at what a single family residence typically generates in our planning model is 225 gallons per day one one number into another number yields a little over a hundred thousand uh single family residents but it's not gonna be all

And so we look at that and we project into the future.

Um, as we mentioned before, we're planning on building a 24 million gallon per day wastewater treatment plant.

If you look at what a single family resident typically generates, and our planning model is 225 gallons per day, one one number into another number yields a little over 100,000 uh single family residents, but it's not going to be all single family residents in our planning model.

There's going to be commercial space, you know, there's going to be schools, there's going to be strip centers or malls.

There's all kinds of commercial development that certainly use a lot more than a single family or would generate a lot more wastewater than a single family resident.

So we have those numbers.

I don't have them in front of me, but I'm happy to gather that up in Lisa's team.

She's got that.

We can bring that to the table.

Yeah, I mean, I just we have to see that number.

I mean, the planning commission keeps saying that we're going to be at 2 million people by what 2050.

So 400,000 people over the next 25 years.

And we're predicting this will cover 106,000 households.

Um, is that what?

Is we ever work off of predicting what two and a half people per household?

Is that about what you say?

So I mean, you see where I'm going with basic math here.

I mean, are we saying that one water is going to um effectively service most of the future planned for growth through 2050?

It stops short of 2050.

I think um Lisa's planning horizon is about 2040, that this phase of the 24 million gallons is is gobbled up, and then we'll be looking at another expansion.

Because you said that you guys don't do it off of um future expected um growth areas, but you must.

I mean, by you you must be doing it off of because the little manatee, I haven't looked at what numbers that'll produce, nowhere near um 250 plus the I-4 um expansion.

I mean, we must be looking beyond what the current urban service area expansions are going to be.

I mean, which would be fine with me, it would make sense, but um what I'm it's just it's been hard for me.

Um, you know, Ms.

Mr.

Grant, I know you know you're the professional in this field, but I'm pretty good at numbers.

Um it's difficult for me to just read this and and there not be an executive summary for not just the commissioners, but the community to say, hey, um, they don't care about acronyms like MGD.

Say this is how much water for this many households, it's this many households times this amount of impact fee, and here's the number that you get to to pay for the costs of the new construction.

It should be very A plus B plus D.

See where I'm going?

Clear as mud.

I mean, that's that's how these things should be pitched because when it's confusing to me, I I almost guarantee it's I mean, I was following um staff's social media post on the announcement of these impact fees, and the comments were, you know, F you commissioners, you're raising my water bill.

And I was like, yeah, this is not your water bill.

This this is just impacts for developers whom you scream that you hate.

So, like this, this is for their fee.

And and the point of me telling you that is that that is the level of education that the average citizen has about our jargon, our terminology in this space.

So something that makes it much more clear that if it's 106,000 households, um, I don't see the need for us to immediately jump the impact fees on January the 1st, like Commissioner Cohen said, because the the planning commission has been studying for, I mean, it's a slow process.

Uh, we're gonna have to go back to them and ask them to expedite at this point about hey, when is the expansion area?

When are the expansion areas coming?

Um, those aren't gonna come anytime soon.

The the land is not going to be um zoned, uh platted and graded and then constructed, which is the time that we actually capture, we don't collect impact fees at zoning, we do it when they actually um complete um the construction.

So that's that's years out.

So I don't I don't understand why it has to be January the first.

Um if if that's what we're saying is that it's for 106,000 people for for new customers.

Do you see my challenge with making the math math?

I do, and you're making some really good points, and I'd like to point out that we have to borrow the money to build the infrastructure up front.

And it would be like you building a house and nobody moves in for six months.

You still built the house, you spent the money and you're paying the mortgage on it, even if nobody lives there.

So similarly, we're gonna build a 24 million gallon per day plant.

If we don't hook up anybody in the first two years, we've still borrowed that money and spent that money.

And so we need to start collecting back on it as soon as the first rooftop goes up, and then we wouldn't anticipate you know, collecting all of it until the last rooftop is built sometime down the road, whether it's 15 or 20 years down the road.

So, but you're asking some good questions, and we can certainly help simplify the discussion in terms of the planning horizon, the number of homes, the number of businesses, the square footage, whatever uh that's anticipated to be connected over the foreseeable future.

So I do have one question, Commissioner Wussel on that topic.

For clarification in the presentation, the timeline says 90 days post adoption, which would be the beginning of quarter two, well, our quarter three, right?

So of 2026.

Beginning of April.

Yeah, it'd be uh we would we would begin a set the first uh house built in April or the first uh March 23rd is the date that we it's a Monday, March 23rd.

So we wouldn't start any assessments in January, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just want to clarification around that was a little confused.

Thank you.

Um so if you did a phase and approach on this area, would you not be able to do the bonding?

Would it kill the deal?

You could.

We we could do bonding still.

Um so your options would be a two-year, three-year, or four-year phase in.

And we can uh Lisa is prepared and Justin is prepared to bring those scenarios to the table.

And yeah, I mean, I I guess my point is, and unless the planning commission is bringing us like a Christmas surprise and says, hey, just kidding, we finished all those studies that we've had for like almost, I don't know, two, is it two years now ago we asked them to do that?

18 months, I don't know.

You know, um, I just we don't have the future growth anyways.

I mean, even the the WVR2, even though we said 10,000 units, two-thirds of it was already developed at residential two, and so it's like significantly less than 10,000 units.

So that's why I'm like, you know, well, how much is the little manatee expansion area um going to out of this 106,000 households, how many is that potentially gonna bring?

And I know these are gross numbers, it's not it's not the actual real numbers, but um this is why I chose not to speak yesterday because I mean no one came anyways, and um I I just I want the numbers.

I'm not trying, I'm not saying you've lost my support, and I'm not trying to talk anybody out of it.

It's it's it's it was my motion to do full cost recovery, but I want the numbers to be very clear and also to be workable for the community.

Got it.

Um so I I just I looked at your graphs and and and honestly, like I thought when you guys first came, I thought the study was done, but the studying was not done until eight days ago, which then and you know, part of my conversation was that I want to make sure that all of the community is notified that they have their own opportunity, they can get their own person to refute um Stan Tech if they want and say, hey, we disagree with these line items or their modeling because of you know whatever reason they say, and then we can have that, we can have that dialogue and that conversation.

Um I didn't realize that it was not done until I had asked for it on the second.

It was basically done that day.

So it's like, you know, it kind of so I'd like to clarify, Commissioner, that the study was done.

All of the numbers were done months ago.

Um what was not done was finalizing the report and signing the report because we were still not sure exactly what direction, whether we were gonna go full cost recovery, or whether we were gonna do only up to the 50%, or if we there were still unanswered items.

Um, what was not done was finalizing the report and signing the report because we were still not sure exactly what direction, whether we were gonna go full cost recovery, or whether we were gonna do only up to the 50%, or if we there were still unanswered items, so all of the calculations and all of the study had been completed already at that point, it just needed to be wrapped together with the direction that we had received.

Yeah, I mean, it's okay.

I mean the the report wasn't done and available for the community to review.

It's it's this the same the same scenario.

Um and I guess it's you know, I this schedule eight down near the bottom.

I just think that it's really important that people have an opportunity to to scrutinize it, um, and say, hey, we you know, we disagree with you know whatever these numbers are.

Um we disagree with the formula that was used, whatever it might be.

Um, and we hear that, you know.

I'm I'm not the type of person that's trying to railroad anything, uh except for the the fake affordable housing community, but not normal things like water and wastewater, you know.

I just want to make sure that it's the real number and the cost of doing business is the cost of doing business, just like the cost of a corrugated box at my UPS store was the cost of the corrugated box, and it and it was what it was, and I just want to make sure that we have that real number that value engineering was done and scrutinized, and that there's not a lot of fluff in here in this report that I don't know.

You know, I don't know Stantex models, I don't know the variable inputs that they use to determine, you know, if it's based off of flat ratios, you know, what's the what's the measurability of waste that you guys calculated in there?

Is it something significantly higher?

Then um, we might, you know.

You see where I'm going is there's a there's a lot of different things that it's since this was so rushed, and then I tried to get through the report the best I could.

Um, I definitely think that we need to see the phased-in approach options and what that would look like, how that would impact bondability.

Um, I still want full cost recovery.

I believe that's what we should do.

Um, because if not, you know, our existing families are gonna be the ones that are um subsidizing those losses.

So um those are my comments right now, and then we'll see what what gets done on the 17th.

Thank you, Commissioner Miller.

I have a few questions.

Thank you, sir.

Uh, for the presentation.

Um, but I am concerned about the increase, the cost increase for the rate.

Um will we have the opportunity to have community engagement um with the communities?

Because at 10 o'clock in the morning, we know we're not going to get that many people, and we asked them for the rate that we're asking.

Have y'all gone out to the community in the afternoon to have a commissioner?

That's a great comment.

And so the community that we're talking about is the development uh community, the developers, uh, because they are the ones that pay these impact fees.

Our our existing customers do not pay these in their rates at all.

Forget that.

But have you gone to them even in the afternoon when they need to share with them what's coming?

Because we know one lightly it's gonna be passed out.

Yeah, okay.

Some of it's gonna be passed down, if not all of it, some of it.

We've interacted with the uh the TBBA, who's very active and engaged in these kinds of matters and discussions, and so it's the information in the reports that uh Stantec has produced has been provided to the the development community.

They've got they've got the information.

And they're ready to move forward in the new.

They're ready to come, they're ready to come to the public hearing next uh Wednesday and speak their mind, is what they're ready to do.

I figured that because I think I think there's an opportunity, and I'm and I get it, what we need to do and what we have to do, but is the timing is just right to do this increase that we're talking about like next year, and I I get it, uh and I agree with what you're saying when it comes to the bonds like bill in the house and still got a fit of mortgage, but you know, we're projecting so much out in the 2040.

But then my next question was gonna be when is the next time we're gonna ask for the rate increase?

Because when you talk about $37 increase, and even though we're talking to developers, and it's going to be passed down, okay.

Then what is the next one?

We can't wait like five and ten years before you ask for a rate, another rate increase.

We need something that can be affordable that people can pay, and even when a developer passes down to a potential homeowner.

Yes, ma'am.

I mean, everyone don't have the extra money.

They just don't.

You know, times are tough for people who want to become a homeowner.

You know, we just can't say it's just a developer because they're selling it to a homeowner.

And people are already talking now that they cannot afford a home.

It costs too much.

Majority people moving back home with their parents.

You know, just can't afford out there.

Whether they're trying to get an apartment, whether they're trying to have a family, whether you're trying to buy a house.

Take all that in consideration.

Yeah, I know and I get it.

We have to move the county forward and plan for the next phase to build what we need with the growth that we're expecting.

But I just wish it was other scenarios so we can look at the balance the whole situation.

That's those are my comments.

Very thoughtful discussion.

Anyone else that I'm missing?

Mr.

Cassie, do you have anything you'd like to add?

Uh Madam Chair, I've taken some notes.

Um, I'm gonna see if I can get with the team and we'll circle back with uh a few suggestions based on the comments.

Excellent, thank you.

Um, last call before I join this meeting.

Anyone?

If not, we're adjourned.

Thank you very much.

Have a great afternoon.