Opinion ID: 2294280
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The County Impact Fee Ordinance

Text: The County is authorized to levy fees under Anne Arundel County Code (AACC), Article 17, Title 11, Section 203, which states: Any person who improves real property and thereby causes an impact upon public schools, transportation, or public safety facilities shall pay development impact fees[.] [2] The amount of the fee varies according to the land use and is computed by reference to a fee schedule. See AACC § 17-11-204. The stated purpose for the impact fees is to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of County residents by (1) requiring all new development to pay its proportionate fair share of the costs for land, capital facilities, and other expenses necessary to accommodate development impacts on public school, transportation, and public safety facilities; (2) complementing the provisions of Title 5 by requiring that all new development pay its share of costs for reasonably attributable impacts; and (3) helping to implement the General Development Plan to help ensure that adequate public facilities for schools, transportation, and public safety are available in a timely and well planned manner. AACC § 17-11-202. [3] There are separate special funds for transportation impact fees and for school impact fees. AACC § 17-11-208. Collected impact fees are to be deposited in the appropriate special fund to ensure that the fees and all interest accruing to the special fund are designated for improvements reasonably attributable to new development and are expended to reasonably benefit the new development. Id. Under Section 17-11-209(c), the County is divided into school impact fee districts and transportation impact fee districts by way of maps prepared by the Office of Planning and Zoning (PZO) and adopted by the County Council. Section 17-11-209(d) states that collected development impact fees shall be used for capital improvements within the development impact fee district from which they are collected, so as to reasonably benefit the property against which the fees were charged. The principal impact fee ordinance provision at issue in this appeal is Section 17-11-210 which governs impact fee refunds. It provides in pertinent part: (a) Notice of refund availability. If fees collected in any district during a fiscal year have not been expended or encumbered by the end of the sixth fiscal year following collection, the Office of Finance shall give notice of the availability of a refund of the fees and refund the fees as provided in this section. (b) Publication of notice. Within 60 days from the end of a fiscal year during which fees become available for refund, the Controller shall cause to be published once a week for two successive weeks in one or more newspapers that have a general circulation in the County, a notice that development impact fees collected within a particular district for a preceding fiscal year are available for refund on application by the current owner of the property for which the fee was originally paid. The notice shall set forth the time and manner for making application for the refund. (c) Refund application deadline. An eligible property owner shall file an application for a refund within 60 days of the last publication of notice. On proper application and demonstration that the fee was paid, the Controller shall refund the fees to the property owner with interest at the rate of 5% per year. (d) Refund on pro rata basis. If only a portion of the fees collected in a district during a fiscal year have been expended or encumbered, the portion not expended or encumbered shall be made available for refund on a pro rata basis to property owners. Each eligible property owner who has properly applied for a refund shall receive a refund in an amount equal to the portion of the original fee that was not expended or encumbered. (e) Extension. The Planning and Zoning Officer may extend for up to three years the date at which the funds must be expended or encumbered under subsection (a). An extension shall be made only on a written finding that within a three-year period certain capital improvements are planned to be constructed that will be of direct benefit to the property against which the fees were charged. AACC § 17-11-210 (emphasis added).