Winter Haven officials review consultantstudy recommending large increase in municipal impact fees

A consultant and city staff told the Winter Haven City Commission on Tuesday that a statutory "extraordinary circumstances" finding supports raising municipal impact fees charged to new development, and recommended the commission adopt the full increases at once.

Joe Williams of Raftelis Financial Consultants, who presented the study, said the update uses the most recent local data and the Florida impact-fee statute (Fla. Stat. —73.31801) to model planned capital investments against projected new development. "Basically, I've modeled out what investments the city is going to be making over the next 5 to 10 years," Williams said, noting new public safety complexes, major parks projects and other facilities were included in the calculations. "We're taking into…