St. Johns raises impact fees today for most buildi

[asonj23]

St. Johns raises impact fees today for most building

The county is devising ways to soften the jolt for affordable housing and new major employers.

By KEN LEWIS, The Times-Union

ST. AUGUSTINE -- Tracey Schiefele beat the deadline Friday, submitting an application for a new house to the St. Johns County Building Department before the impact fees quadruple.

Other builders waited their turn.

"They're all slammed," Schiefele said, shuffling her papers and gazing at other people in the room.

But while builders have been panicking, the county has been exploring how to circumvent the very increase it passed, according to a Times-Union review of hundreds of e-mails sent and received by St. Johns County commissioners, staff and employees in the weeks preceding and following the March 16 vote.

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Is St. Johns County finally growing a brain and realizing that enlarging their county population by allowing massive sprawling developments eventually ends up costing them more trouble than what its worth. The bad part is that I'm not sure this will do very much to control residential growth.

I wonder how ling it will be before "St Johns" develops it's own township?