Reply to Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just don’t get why anyone would blindly support new developments without the infrastructure (like schools) to support it.  Makes zero sense to me.[/quote]

Montgomery County has NEVER built the schools before building the housing. Never.[/quote]

Nobody is saying that Montgomery County needs to build the schools before the housing.  However, it is reasonable to expect developers to set aside money or to designate a plot of land that can be used for future schools.

That is not happening.  [/quote]

Yes it is.

"Development Impact Taxes are, set by the Montgomery County Council, assessed on new residential and commercial buildings and additions to commercial buildings in the county to fund, in part, the improvements necessary to increase the transportation or[b] public-school systems capacity[/b], thereby allowing development to proceed."
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/DPS/fees/Taxes.html
[/quote]

What developers are paying is a fraction of what costs to support the students that new development generates. The county loses money on every housing unit it adds once you account for school costs. That’s a fact. [/quote]

So two things:
1.  The PP I was responding to said that developers are not required to set aside money to address schools.  They are.  That was false.  You are now making a different point.
2.  I genuinely and sincerely am interested in seeing anything that supports your "fact" that adding housing loses money for the county.  And as you say not just theoretically or some, but "every unit" so indesputably true that "it is fact."[/quote]

To your second point, look at [b]the current impact fees and the average per seat cost of school construction[/b]. The impact fees are less than the average per seat cost of school construction. The county just lowered the impact fees again last year because school construction costs spiked and they didn’t want to burden developers with the cost increase. That impact fee cut last year was on top of the impact fee cut that they did three years ago. [/quote]

Assuming you have done this calculation, would you mind pointing me toward those sources?[/quote]

You don’t need to do any calculations. Look at the rates that were published May 1 last year and then look at the revised rates. Or look at the law and see that the calculation sets them below recovery cost. [/quote]

I was looking for help finding those rates and estimates.  Here is what I found on my own:

The impact fees for schools are a calculation of average students per unit x school construction cost per student = school impact fees
That calculation was 57% for turnover multifamily (though I'm not sure what that is a percentage of) That is significantly higher due to construction cost *at that time* when there were serious supply chain issues
The county then capped that at 20% (though anything not collected COULD be collected at a later date)
The rate will be readjusted again this year.
https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/countywide/growth-and-infrastructure-policy/schools/school-impact-taxes/

And there is an additional fee that developers pay for school impacts apparently:
https://montgomeryplanning.org/planning/countywide/growth-and-infrastructure-policy/schools/school-impact-taxes/

Conclusion:  Developers are required by law to pay a fee specifically to offset construction of a new school, should that becomes necessary.  As of this moment, that amount is not enough to completely pay for a new school, new to abnormality in the supply chain at the time of calculation.  Historically it was sufficient and in the future it should be sufficient.  "waived" fees can be recouped.  Tax revenue generated from new development is an ongoing source of funding for the county.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics