Population Density, DRI's & Pirates

Baxley, what a great posting. I’m glad you came up with some intelligent stats on the past and future growth in Clay county. In 2000 there was 140,000 and prospects of growth to 250,000 by 2015. That’s only 7 years away. I wonder if the BCC can keep their eyes closed that long and keep hoping that the present road system will support the increased workload. Most roads haven’t been re-paved or repaired for the last 20 years and nothing seems to be on the agenda for anything to happen still. Do you really think that US-17 and Blanding Blvd. can continue to be the main entrances and exits for this county? It probably can if they lower the speed limits to 3 MPH.

If you take a drive, say down US17 go beyond GCS, the crazy growth hasn't really affected that area(yet) You can still see pigs and Goats in the yard and the houses aren't fancy or stuck really close together.  Land is still sold in big chunks. They haven't had to build any new schools, the kids are bussed to the old schools of GCS, Clay High, GCS Junior High, and Charles E. Bennett Elem.  GCS Junior high is so old that it used to be the High school before they built present day Clay High. It has been a high school, a middle school, and now a Junior High. My sisters went to middle school there and my nephew went to junior high.

So all the growth, uncontrolled or not, that is going on, ( I forgot the point I was trying to make) NUTS

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle

Bax;

Sit down, relax, take a deep breath, exhale slowly and repeat until your heart rate slows. I haven't heard anyone call the building industry evil except you. What I have heard is people (including me) that have said we should not and cannot go along with uncontrolled growth. Let me stipulate what I mean by uncontrolled growth. I mean building houses without the required infrastructure to support it. That we can control.

Growth should not be just roof tops. It should include roads, good paying jobs, clean air, open space and the list goes on. When you stuff 5K houses into a transportation area that can only support 3K you are making a big mistake and it should not be allowed.

You build a transportation system that can handle 7K to account for future growth as you are building the 5K houses. You don't wait for 5 years after the homes are built to try to figure out how to build the required roads and schools. The problem I see is that many developers and builders want their cake and to eat it too. They want to build the houses but they want the tax payer to build the roads and schools. The hue and cry seems to be 'No Impact Fees'. It raises the price too much and we can't sell as many houses.

I keep hearing about how we need 'affordable' housing. What does that mean? Who defines affordable and how many of those houses have you built in the past 5 years as compared to the non-affordable type?

'Projections' are weird things. They take on a life of their own sometimes. Those population projections were made when the housing market and the population of Florida were expanding exponentially. These numbers were based on a lot of factors. One of which was how fast can we build houses.

It is now contracting exponentially. If the growth rate was the same today as it was 18 months ago we wouldn't have 12-15 months worth of inventory that nobody can sell. Seen any new numbers come out lately? Of course not. That would be counter productive to the building industry.

Let's take a look at your statements about how society has lived everywhere. You are right to a point. They have lived in a number of places and some of those societies have had spectacular crashes because they built and grew beyond what the infrastructure could support.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that we can't get big industries here because we don't have a restricted access road in Clay County that can handle the traffic. So let's build one on the tax payer's back and make it a toll road with no viable plan for collecting that toll from anyone except the locals. Great master plan that is. But hey, someone is going to make a good profit from it and that's just good business sense for them.

Now what folks? Am I going to be able to get people to come here for the expanded jobs if they have to sit in grid lock for an hour to drive 10 miles to work? And don't tell me how we'll shift the jobs back here to Clay County and we won't have as many people driving to Duval. That is just not going to happen on a large scale.

There's one other problem with that thought. We don't have enough trained people to fill those jobs. Ours schools in Clay may be 'the best around' but when the best is only mediocre we've got a problem. Oh and no impact fees to help make them better either. It raises the price of the houses we're trying to sell.

I don't doubt your numbers on density one bit. The issue is they are just raw data points. 10,000 people in a 1,000 km2 area is just 10 people per km2. But if 800 km2 of that area is unpopulated what is the real density level? That number suddenly jumps to 50. That is what happens when you build a CDD, a DRI or any other name you want to call it. Let's take a look at the real density level in Clay by subtracting out the hundreds of km2 that are virtually uninhabited. I think those numbers would be scary. Maybe that's why you never see those.

Do that often enough and the entire system fails. You wouldn't let your carpenters start building walls before you put in the foundation would you? Well I call controlling growth getting the foundation (infrastructure) built before I start putting up rooftops.

Call it managing instead of controlling if that word works better for you but whatever we call it we have to do it. What we are doing now is just pure idiocy. It reminds me of a joke I heard a long time ago.

A farmer has a really old mule hooked up to his wagon at the feed store. As he keeps loading more and more sacks of feed on the wagon one of the workers points out that he's got an awful heavy load there for such an old mule.

The farmer looks at him and says that mule is blind and doesn't know difference so just keep loading the wagon boys.

It's about darn time for the leaders of Clay County take off the blinders and start looking at how heavy a load they are putting on the people that have to carry it. This mule knows the difference and I'm tired of it. 

Mike Heemer

You know Bill I don't write a single blog about growth without thinking about you.  Way back in the beginning I used harsh words in talking about alot of things or people and I've learned to tone it down a bit. 

I can imagine your frustration and anger, this is your livelyhood and you have a family you're trying to take care of. It's bad enough what is going on in the market without seeing people who don't want this boom to return, it's like you're getting it on both ends of the spectrum.  I don't like Appraisers being all lumped into one category, and I'm sure Attorneys don't appreciate it either, unfortunately it happens for us all. 

With that being said.....everything has a limit.  When you put up a weight bearing wall you're not going to build one weaker then the load it will hold.  Elevators have a weight capacity, go over that limit and it will reduce the economic life at the least and at the worst can fail and cause bodily harm.  Theaters, Restuarants, second stories, you name it...most everything has a limit as to how full or heavy it can be.  Try putting ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound sack.

Both Atlanta and Orlando are dangerously close to depleting their water sources, yet they keep on building. My brother lives in a suburb of Atlanta and he says there is absolutely no sign of slowing down.  Now both areas are going outside their own backyard to get those resources elsewhere so they can keep on building.  When it's all done and the areas are struggling to survive the developers will just move to another area less developed and do the same thing all over again.

Taking care of what you already have is a basic concept I taught my children when they were small.  If they're not going to take care of what they have I am not going to give them more to abuse and tear up.  It's a simple concept. 

The only business we know will come of this beltway is the business for the people involved in it's creation.  The other businesses that will surely come will be gas stations, resturants and hotels off the exits which supposedly everyone doesn't see as valuable.....anything other then that is a crap shoot.

Where industry is concerned Clay County will always play second fiddle to Jacksonville, it's a scenario of suburbs everywhere. 

I'm not against growth, or more DRI's in theory, I love the new stores that are opening up in Oak Leaf Plantation, it saves me from having to go into OP.  If our roads were not so over crowded and in such bad shape I wouldn't care quite frankly and I don't think anyone would, but they aren't.  Schools are too small before they're even finished and the taxpayer is going into debt further with each new subdivision that requires the building of schools.  The potholes and uneven roads are reeking havoc with the alignment on my car and we've got bridges I cringe when I cross because I know they've been rated as deficient.

None of us are against growth altogether no matter how many times you try to spin it that way.  Do we build till there is nothing left, I sure hope not. There is just a growing number of people who feel the county has bitten off more then it can chew where growth is concerned and we just want to see the mouthful chewed properly before another bite is taken and the taxpayer chokes on it. 

The big chain stores have the ability to put the brakes on projects when circumstances change and even WalMart is going to slow down on their expansion when they see the return for their dollar going down.  Goverment is a slow poke at responding whether it's catching up or thinking ahead.  Whatever the projections were for growth, the reality has changed, and I think now is the perfect time for the County to play catch up.  Once the roads we already have are in decent shape for the load they carry you all can build to your hearts content and I won't care.  I want balance....nothing more.

It is not a question of if Clay County's population is going to grow.  That's a given.

How fast and if we're properly prepared for that growth, well, that's the whole issue when it comes to growth management, isn't it?  The key is to have infrastructure ready to welcome the growth.

Clay County has grown so fast, we haven't been able to keep up with government services like road maintenance, public health care, animal control.  We're a billion dollars behind in school construction, and that's just to accommodate what's already here.  Instead of being prepared for growth, we are always playing catch-up.  And the faster we grow, the behinder we get.

Right now, Clay County's growth must be accepted only with the perspective that there is already work to be done.

I hate impact fees on a philosophical level.  I don't like one group being asked to pay taxes that others do not, without receiving some special service in return.  It's patently unfair.  But there's not any way around them at the moment.

We're all paying for county government's past inept efforts at growth management.  While we do that, until we're finished correcting those mistakes, growth will have to pay for itself.

Michael S. Mann

michaelsmann@comcast.net

Fred Catchpole Office 904-771-6852 Cell 904-708-5541

Growth is inevitable, just like taxes and politicians making promises.  I understand the sarcasm at the beginning and with today's economic situation I truly understand your anger. Construction as an industry is just as important as any form of manufacturing.  Those who have careers in the building industry are proud of their work and profession.

The most recent boom in building now has turned to a bust.  Since the Market went south, builders have struggled to sell new homes for a fraction of what they sold the same models for 3 years ago just to meet current carrying costs.  Some buyers are even suing for loss of equity and blaming it on builders discounting prices just to stay in business.

Large builders commit to large projects and have to perform they do not have the ability to react quickly to crisis situations.  Just like Congress.

The DRI's proposed for Clay County will be built some day.  Today it is not financially prudent to commit to large projects when the demand and more importantly the financing is not available.  I noted in my first blog the extent of the backlog of homes in the area.  However, I did not touch upon the difficulty of financing the purchase of either new or older homes.

The outer Beltway will eventually be built but it too is not economically viable in the near term nor the next 5 years in my humble opinion.

I know the builders believe that impact fees are adversely affecting their marketing of new homes.  Despite the perceived difficulty it places on the builder, my concern is a larger picture and that is the taxpayer.  Construction of large scale developments create serious problems to the infrastructure, these added costs by far exceed the normal maintenance required.  The options are limited, on how these added costs of taxpayer assets can be mitigated.

1.  Increase property taxes for all citizens of the County.  Creates a lot of angry people.

2.  Increase taxes of sold properties in the development. Creates animosity for the new buyer.  Further it is a detriment to marketing.  Further there is a lag in collecting property taxes which would defer the County from being able to pay immediately for some of the repairs.

3.  Create a Lotto with proceeds going to solve the added costs created in the building and development phases.  The State might not like the competition.

4.  Have the County absorb the costs by reducing jobs.  I doubt this would be popular especially for those who have to find new occupations.

5.  Have a reasonable impact fee with funds dedicated to fixing the problems created, like displaced pavement from the operation of heavy equipment.  Damage caused by water run off not planned or forseen. et al.  This impact fee is born by the consumer and is part of the financing.  In todays market the problem for the builder is getting the impact fee financed.  Many properties appraise for prices below the planned cost for the home and the impact fee that was added to preserve planned profit.

The consumer or taxpayer ends up paying in the end.  No, I do not feel a lottery is the way to go.  Nor would I want to see anyone displaced from their careers. As I have stated before I am in favor of continuing impact fees for large developments.

In a hot market the consumer and the financing do not care as much about the impact fee.  In a market like today's wow, anger rises on both sides.

In my first of my two blogs I pointed out the County Faces a budget shortage of $5 million dollars.  This deficit may run higher if someone does not take the oil industry to task and regulate trading so that nothing that affects national defense can get out of control like it has this year.

To me the Impact Fee is necessary to the County to maintain a modicum of financial responsibility.  Further, a doctrine of fairness would suggest if you create abnormal problems that you should at least contribute to resolving those problems.  Remember the County typically lags in collecting property taxes on new construction and at least the impact fee is available during the lag to offset the immediate issues.

Look at 220 west of college at how the roads have deteriorated from the transport of heavy vehicles and equipment in building those developments along 220.

With proper planning and keeping building in balance with demand, property values will stabalize and people will start recovering the net worth lost over the past 2 plus years.

Fred Catchpole

Thanks for the great comments.  Mike - I'll confess to being a little thin skinned about the 'evil' thing, and I promise to let it go.  Call my post above a bit of an exorcism.

I agree with all of you - we must plan for growth.  If there is a sin from the past, it is having not planned for growth.  I'll be the first to admit that past Commissions were guilty of pandering to new residential growth.  Pandering may be too strong of a word, but look around us and we see the effects of vote YES first, worry about consequences later.  Later is here.

I really believe, as a group, our current County Administration - elected & hired - are a different breed than some of the past.  And, they have hindsight & living with the consequences as a great teacher to guide them.

If you haven't heard yet, the developer for the proposed Highlands DRI has decided to pull the application.  I've followed this DRI from the initial meeting with county staff to present.  Clay County Planning Department officials (Mike kloehn & crew), guided by a strong willed County Manager (Fritz), and a BCC that was asking a lot of really tough questions put the developer through their paces - just as it should have.  The proposed DRI was scrutinized inside & out by county & state agencies that set a very high bar for mitigations.  Apparently more than the developer could swing.  This is the second DRI that has pulled their application after being put through the Clay County wringer. Black Creek was the other.  Maybe our new "sheriff" is setting a different tone for developers thinking about Clay as a place to do business.

Anyway - thanks for letting me vent without barking back too hard, and thanks for all the great conversation about growth.  On to bigger & better.

How about that 5 + 2 deal?  You know an elected chair is the way to go Marsha - admit it.   Just kidding.

Hopefully not too far off topic.  I think it is great to have candidates for elected office sharing their opinion about what is probably the most important issue facing Clay County in the future.

Thanks to you both (Mike & Fred).  To the others who are watching from the sidelines - come on in.  The water's fine.

From what I’m hearing from everyone running for political office, each and every one of them is hanging their hat on what impact fees can do for our county. None of them are calling a spade a spade. There comes a time when all the citizens of this county are going to have to belly up to the bar and pay their fair share. The leaders of this county have allowed the infrastructure to deteriorate for the last twenty years and it’s about time to pay the piper.

I am not a new homeowner so I didn’t have to pay an impact fee when my house was built. I am a resident of Clay county though and it is part of my responsibility as a citizen to pay my fair share to allow this county to grow as it should. As long as whatever is done is fair, then I have no room to complain.

As I look at the map I see that Clay county has one US highway and two State roads, hence, the remainder of all the roads are the responsibility of Clay county. We aren’t like Duval county where a lot of their thoroughfares belong to Florida or good ol’ Uncle Sam. Duval gets assistance in their road maintenance from other funding sources and have succeeded in becoming the orange cone capital of the free world. Clay has to tote this barge all by itself.

I’m not an accountant or an economist so I’m at a loss in trying to figure out where the extra money needs to come from other than passing a tax of some sort. I did have an idea though and maybe I’m totally off base but here it is; suppose Clay county had an assessment to land owners for infrastructure maintenance, repair and growth. Assess each acre of property at $500. This would be paid in $50 installments over ten years. This would establish a base income near $200,000,000 that could be used as collateral to acquire a bond to repair existing roads and build some new ones. In the mean time, new people would be moving to Clay county and getting their chance to pay an impact fee.

For years we have had  a gasoline tax that is suppose to be for roads. With all the new growth, comes at least two more cars per family, so that coffer should have a bunch o dollars in it.  So in this manner we are all paying some of the upkeep, as long as the $$ is going to the right places.

Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle

Fred Catchpole Office 904-771-6852 Cell 904-708-5541

Walt, the position I have taken to continue the Impact Fee is because it is my belief that Larger Builders and Developers do significant damage to the infrastructure, roads, and bridges are in particular my concerns. 

I do not in the wildest scenario think that the impact fee covers the damage.  I believe it is at least a recognition that the builders and developers have a duty to the community to minimize the negative impacts and at least the impact fee to a certain degree holds them somewhat accountable.

It is my understanding that roads are engineered for a certain economic life before it should need repairs.  The heavy vehicles used in support of large developments and builders shorten the economic life of the roads and bridges.  If one were to measure the difference in cost between the two different economic lives larger impact fees would be necessary to make up the short falls.

How ever certain taxes are supposed to be ear marked for road improvements.  It is my humble opinion that county leadership as moved those funds to other projects and thus we have a situation on 220 west of College, and 209 including the Bridge over Black Creek.  I could be wrong but then again I could be very very correct.

The Commissioners have broad discretion kind of like Judges and frequently will move money from one project to another.

I think you hit the nail on the head in one of your responses, fix what we have if it is fixed it will better handle the traffic.

No matter what I say the beltway will at sometime be built.  My position is that the taxpayer has already put a very large investment in it, to turn it to private enterprise and gurantee them a specific profit endangers the taxpayers investment and in my opinion creates a big problem for the taxpayer.

I travel the Brannon Field corridor daily, when shool buses are not running and people abide by the speed limit traffic moves smoothly and safely.

When there is no police presence there are some bad actors that will incite delays by cutting people off, making sudden stops and just generally causing havoc.

I like the police presence and hope it continues perhaps the police can make a profit center out of a cost center.

Thank you for your concern about the issues.

Fred Catchpole 

Fred, thanks for your imput.  Just curious, what investment has the county government put into the beltway?

also, isn't the bridge over black creek that you are talking about going to be replaced and widened in the next couple of years?  I thought that I read that in the paper.

Fred, have you had a chance to review my post called investment.