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Impact fees for libraries are likely
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer New home buyers in Pasco County should get ready to shoulder the cost of new books and libraries. Struggling to keep up with rampant suburbanization, the county's library system wants to collect impact fees of $145 per new house and $97 per new apartment and mobile home. A first hearing on the library fee is scheduled for a County Commission meeting that begins at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Dade City. Pasco has penciled in the second and final hearing for Sept. 4. Although builders and developers typically pay impact fees directly to the county, they plug the cost into the price of the new home. Lest buyers swoon from sticker shock, the county plans to pour most of the money into its fastest-growing areas: Trinity and Wesley Chapel. Neither community has a library, and Pasco plans to change that. Over the next eight years, the county proposes to build a 30,000-square-foot library in Trinity and a 12,000-square-foot library in Wesley Chapel. About the same time, the 10,000-square-foot in Land O'Lakes library will nearly double in size. Also due expansions are the Regency Park Library in west Pasco and Hugh Embry Library in Dade City. Pasco predicts the fee will raise $6.2-million through 2010. It's the first substantial money the county would invest in libraries since a bond-financed expansion that ended in 1992. The county's seven existing libraries hold 505,000 volumes, or 1.52 books per person, below the national average of 2.81 books per person. The county's recently released library master plan recommends boosting the collection to 860,000 volumes by 2010 to meet the state standard of 2.2 books per person. The library assessment joins recently approved fees of $1,694 per home for schools and $892 for parks. As they did when pitching those earlier fees, county administrators warn that the library fee can't pay for everything. The library master plan's "wish list" calls for $17.2-million in buildings and materials, nearly triple what the impact fee should generate. To cover the difference, consultants suggest a sales tax increase or special taxing district. In an election year, county commissioners have shied from both, although they did approve a penny-per-gallon gas tax hike in June. "But keep in mind that in the budget next year is $900,000 for existing park and library deficiencies," assistant county administrator Dan Johnson said. "That will get us started." Initially critical of impact fees, developers have stood largely mute on the latest threat to their bottom lines. If last year's opposition to the school impact fee was a growl, the park fee inspired barks and the library fee only whimpers. "It's been smooth sailing," Johnson said.
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