DELTONA, Fla. — It’s going to cost more to develop in Deltona. City leaders voted to raise impact fees by 73 percent.
While this gives current residents a break, the Volusia Building Industry argues new property owners will ultimately pay the price.
The new fees will cover everything from police to parks.
City leaders said that all of those additional services and infrastructure upgrades will be necessary, with more than 3,000 new homes planned for Deltona in the coming years. But the building industry believes those new homes will be unaffordable for most people.
Current residents said that’s how it should be.
“I feel like it’s getting oversaturated, and if you want to over-saturate an area, I feel like the minorities shouldn’t have to pay for it. It should be the developers and bigger people paying for it,” said Deltona resident C-Jay Moore.
Executive Director of the Volusia Building Industry, Alison Root, said that while developers will cover the costs up front, the burden will ultimately fall on new homeowners. Root said Deltona is raising impact fees by $2,000 per home, which will make the area less affordable.
“For every thousand-dollar increase in the price of a home, you price out 150,000 people from the market. So, at $2,000, you’ve just displaced 200,000 to 300,000 people from moving to Deltona,” said Root.
The city of Edgewater is also looking to increase impact fees, specifically its stormwater fees, by 600 percent. Both Edgewater and Deltona previously had building bans while city leaders looked for solutions to flooding.
“All cities need to reevaluate what they’re doing for maintenance. Impact fees cannot, by state statute, be used for any type of maintenance, replacement, anything like that,” said Root.
Here in Deltona, the first phase of the increase will take effect on October 1.
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