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What services are we getting for impact fees?

I am a recent landowner in Royal Highlands' Unit 2. I also am in the process of having a home built.

I paid a good piece of change for the land and the house, and high impact fees. My question is, why is there nothing here for which impact fees would be spent? No roads, water, sewage, parks, drainage - nothing! I called the county, and they explained that residents pay for their own roads. Why?

There are hundreds of homes built or being built now. Why are they not using any of the impact fees in the areas where they are collecting them?

It's a simple question, folks. We paid impact fees (taxes) in an area that is booming. When is the county going to provide something - anything - to the residents?

Old store not best for public use

I am writing in regard to the suggestion that the vacant Kmart building on U.S. 19 in Spring Hill be used to house public facilities.

As the former director of Environmental Health and Safety at Virginia Tech (a major research university and home of the Atlantic Coast Conference football champs), I was deeply involved in a similar proposal to adapt a large, vacant Leggett's store for equivalent occupancy.

At first glance this looked like an excellent idea, but a careful review of the facility showed it would be much more expensive to renovate the building properly than to build a new, purpose-designed facility.

Why this was true is a good question.

The department store consisted of essentially a large, wide-open space. The air-handling system was designed for space of that character. Even if one uses an open-space design full of cubicles, an office facility for the various departments has different requirements.

On average, the amount of fresh air requirements for large numbers of personnel, most of whom would use substantial amounts of heat-generating equipment, would be considerably greater than the average spatial requirements in a department store.

The distribution plan for fresh air and air returns also would differ significantly to ensure that all personnel would be provided with the amounts of fresh air to meet code requirements.

The electrical distribution plan would have needed to be dramatically different to serve the computers, to provide lighting and other uses of electricity in individual offices. Phone systems would need to be incorporated to serve individual spaces. Computer systems need to be interconnected, and provision would need to be made to facilitate this.

The floor plan would need to be very different, with corridors and separate rooms built to provide separate spaces for different departments and individual uses, such as offices, reception areas, conference rooms, copy centers, lunch/break rooms and bathrooms. For the last of these, many more washrooms would be needed for a high-density personnel use such as offices.

The overall space may be there, but if one has to distribute specific spaces, electrical power, air and water, I stress you need to do this in the original design.

I believe that if this Kmart proposal is carefully evaluated, planners will come to the same conclusion we did.

VFW post should keep bingo

Re: Dropping numbers mark end of bingo, July 19 Times.

I think instead of VFW Post 10209 getting rid of bingo, they should get rid of Commander Ed Noll, who talked to us at a Tuesday night bingo session as if we were second-class citizens, instead of senior citizens whose money supports many worthwhile causes.

Remember the Lions Club; shortly after closing bingo they closed the club.

I have been playing bingo for 19 years at Post 10209, and saw many bingo chairmen come and go. Some were good, some were bad. Smitty is one of the good ones.

[Last modified July 28, 2005, 01:09:17]