Pasco County staff propose steep mobility-fee increases, board debates rural-lot discount

Pasco County officials on Wednesday unveiled proposed mobility-fee increases and asked the Board of County Commissioners to provide direction before a May 5 adoption hearing.

Nick Yuran, the county engineer, told the board the workshop is required under state law whenever a local government seeks to raise mobility fees beyond statutory limits. He said the county faces four "extraordinary circumstances" that justify exceeding the usual thresholds: faster population growth than the last update anticipated, updated trip-generation rates, higher capital costs and a sharp decline in state and federal revenues for transportation projects.

"Our projected need for transportation facilities is nearly $7 billion because we will add 330,000 new residents and we will require an additional 950 lane miles to support the demand," Yuran said, adding that revenues without the proposed increases would leave a funding gap of about $2.9 billion.

The draft ordinance would introduce some fee increases above 50 percent of current rates and phases increases in two equal annual installments, staff said. Some discounts would be preserved or expanded: hotels, office and traditional industrial uses would retain a 100% subsidy; the county would increase the small-business discount by 25% and add a new long-term resident owner-builder discount for single-family homes.

The proposed tables also remove a multi-family subsidy and introduce a mobility fee for high-cube warehouse/distribution uses, a category staff said is not producing the higher-wage jobs the county seeks.

A large portion of the meeting became a policy debate over an existing code provision that treats lots of five acres or more in rural-designated areas as eligible for a suburban-rate discount. Commissioners argued about where to set that threshold: maintain five acres, reduce it to 2.5 acres (a compromise staff recommended), or consider one-acre eligibility in some places.

"If we want to encourage the minor rural subdivision life and rural living, land's a luxury item today," Commissioner Starkey said, arguing for flexibility. "I think it's hogwash" that conferences only promote higher-density development, he added, criticizing the idea that density always reduces per-capita infrastructure cost.

Others said rural infrastructure costs per capita are higher because roads and services must be spread over larger areas, and warned against inadvertently incentivizing suburban-style density in rural zones.

Staff told the board the five-acre element is a single word in the code and is easily changed with board direction; however, Yuran reminded commissioners that statutory rules require the fee-rate changes to be implemented only after satisfying the extraordinary-circumstances process and — for the increases proposed — a unanimous board vote to adopt the new fee tables.

No formal vote on the ordinance was taken at the workshop; staff closed the public-comment portion (no members of the public spoke) and scheduled the adoption hearing for May 5 in Dade City to allow commissioners to refine the proposed language and rate tables.

What happens next: staff said they will follow up individually with each commissioner to reach a consensus ahead of the May 5 adoption hearing. The final ordinance will need to match statutory timing and implementation rules, and commissioners were reminded that any change to the five-acre text element can be made quickly if the board instructs staff to do so.

Sources: Presentation to the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners by Nick Yuran, County Engineer; board discussion at the R32 mobility-fees workshop.