All right.

Mr.

Clark, please sound the next item.

Madam Mayor, members of council, we have two public hearings this afternoon.

The first is a public hearing impact fee presentation, which will be provided by

Mr.

Reginald McClendon, Managing Director.

Department of Community Development Regulatory Affairs.

Thank

you, Mr.

Clerk.

Reggie McClendon, Managing Director of Community Development and Regulatory Affairs.

Today we have a public hearing for our capital improvements element, which is an integral part of our impact fee study and analysis that we have done as a city in our attempt to implement impact fees.

This hearing is required by state law.

And so we're going to have our consultant, Miss Paige Hatley, come up and describe exactly what a capital improvements element

is

and what is included in the capital improvements element.

Afterwards, I would ask Madam Mayor to open up a public hearing and give the community at least 10 minutes if anyone wants to comment on the items in the capital improvements element.

By way of reminder, we have been working on our impact fees, our impact fee study for I believe well over a year at this point.

We did delay the process a little bit because it has to our passage of our comprehensive plan had to precede the capital improvements element because the capital improvements element will be adopted as part of that of our work program for our comprehensive plan.

And so that is why we are bringing this to you today.

So without delay, Ms.

Hatley.

Thank you, and good evening.

As uh Mr.

McClendon mentioned, uh, the CIE or capital improvements element is a core component of an impact fee study and uh and at the end of it, potentially a component of an impact fee program if the city elects to adopt one.

Um it is a state requirement.

There are two formal components or documents that ultimately comprise an impact fee program.

The CIE or capital improvements element is the first.

This is a project-based document that is required of all communities in the state of Georgia that contemplate collecting impact fees.

Um it specifically looks at the long-range need for certain capital projects and services that are needed to serve growth and development.

It's considered a component of the comprehensive plan, so upon adoption, it would be integrated into your recently updated comp plan as an appendix, with its focus being on capital projects eligible for impact fee funding, specifically pertaining to parks, police, and fire.

It is long range in scope, as I mentioned, consistent with the planning horizon of your comprehensive plan.

And so the state, uh the Department of Community Affairs guidelines mandates that we look ahead based on projected growth in population, housing, and employment over the coming decades.

What's going to be needed to serve future development?

So we have a long-range list that's in the capital improvements element, as well as a five-year work program where the state says, in addition to the full list of projects that could be funded with impact fees because they're needed to serve new development.

What is anticipated to be completed in the near term?

You have a five-year work program in your comprehensive plan, and then it would be a complementary five-year work program focusing on these parks, police, and fire projects in the CIE.

The state also requires that the CIE identify service areas for your police, fire, and uh parks uh systems.

Um, as is common with municipal impact fee programs, the entire city is considered the service area because regardless of the location of your parks, police and fire uh projects or amenities, uh, facilities, they all serve everyone equally within the city.

They're accessible to all residents

uh

regardless of location.

Uh one is stress that the CIE uh does not address the fee calculations and the impact fees themselves that could be charged to help pay for the projects in the CIE.

That's not the purview of the Department of Community Affairs.

They're looking at everything else that gets us to the point of identifying and justifying the need for certain specific projects.

State law allows these general project types in terms of impact fee expenditures.

So really that means we're looking at these three groupings.

The CIDE identifies additional park amenities and trail projects, additional building area, and additional heavy vehicles.

So anything that increases the capacity or the city's ability to expand services to accommodate a growing city.

The CIE is not inclusive of all projects, of all needs that you may identify that may be in plans, that may be in your budget, because we have to isolate those needs that are forward-looking in nature that are intended to accommodate future growth, not meeting issues that may exist today.

So what that looks like in terms of parks and police and fire.

This is a summary table based on a larger table that is from the draft CIE that shows all of the type and number of the park amenities that are eligible for funding from impact fees, meaning these are the number that we can attribute to new growth.

This is the new growth demand.

And so project costs, project years, all of those things may change.

But when it comes time to annual budgeting, everyone needs to be mindful of the fact that impact fees as they grow over time with development.

These are the projects, both in type and numbers that can't be exceeded in terms of using impact fees as a funding source.

The same principle applies to fire.

With fire and police, we look at square footage and heavy vehicles as the two primary types of projects eligible for funding.

And so there's a cap on the number of square footage and a cap on the number of heavy vehicles or fire apparatus that we've calculated as being this is what is demanded by new growth and no more than this.