Orange County Impact Fee Studies

As a high-growth county, ranking second out of 67 Florida counties in terms of absolute growth that will be added by 2045 and 7th in terms of annual population growth rate, Orange County needed to find a way to address infrastructure costs associated with new growth.

The County retained Benesch to update or develop impact fees for areas including fire rescue, schools, parks and recreation facilities, transportation and law enforcement. These studies resulted in numerous new insights for the County. In the parks and recreation impact fee analysis, Benesch provided recommendations on how to treat the County’s large inventory of undevelopable habitat land.

Using three different methodologies, consumption-based, improvements-based and asset value-based, Benesch developed transportation impact fees and introduced fee variations among rural, suburban, and urban areas. Benesch also presented multiple school impact fee methodologies for the School Impact Fee Advisory Committee and worked with the Committee to determine the final methodology.

Multiple meetings with stakeholders, elected officials and the public were completed, and all studies were successfully adopted.