By Red Tape Florida
Two years after Broward County stopped collecting roughly $8.5 million a year in development fees because its existing system didn’t comply with new state requirements, county officials are moving to dismantle much of the system that generated those charges.
Two ordinances before the Broward County Commission last week would eliminate transportation concurrency requirements, roadway concurrency reviews, transportation concurrency assessments and road impact fees from the county’s comprehensive plan and development code.
The story dates to 2024, when Florida lawmakers changed the requirements governing impact fees. Among other provisions, state law requires impact fees to be proportional and reasonably connected to the additional infrastructure needs created by new development and the benefits the development receives from the money collected.
Broward’s assessment of its existing system was unusually direct.
“The County’s fee structure did not comply,” county staff wrote in the report accompanying the proposed comprehensive plan changes.
On Sept. 17, 2024, commissioners voted to suspend collection of the affected fees. The suspension took effect Oct. 1 and covered transportation concurrency assessments, road impact fees, regional park impact fees and local park impact fees in the Broward Municipal Services District. School impact fees and application review fees continued to be collected.
The amount of money involved wasn’t trivial.
County records estimate Broward had been collecting approximately $6.83 million annually in transportation concurrency assessments, $459,421 in road impact fees and $1.27 million in regional and local park impact fees.
Combined, that’s about $8.55 million a year.
Now, two years later, Broward isn’t proposing to resurrect the old transportation fee system.
The county’s Sept. 22 agenda included an ordinance amending its comprehensive plan to conform with state law and another ordinance that would remove the old transportation concurrency system from the county code altogether.
Under the proposed code changes, Broward would eliminate concurrency districts, roadway concurrency reviews, transportation concurrency assessments and road impact fees. Development applications submitted after the ordinance takes effect would no longer undergo the county’s regional road-network adequacy review. Previously issued development orders, permits and certificates would remain valid.
There is an important distinction. Broward didn’t conclude that the fees it collected before 2024 were illegal. The Legislature changed the requirements, and Broward’s existing system didn’t meet the new standards.
But Broward’s response is notable.
The county could have conducted the necessary analysis, established fees satisfying the new requirements and resumed collecting the money.
Instead, collection has remained suspended for two years. And now Broward is considering eliminating much of the transportation-concurrency apparatus that produced those charges in the first place.
For developers, the financial effect is easy to understand: millions of dollars in annual government charges disappeared after state law required Broward to provide updated justification for them.
And two years later, Broward isn’t trying to bring the old system back.
It’s trying to take it off the books.