A study contracted by the county on Lee County’s road impact fees recommends an increase of 200%.  If approved, the current impact fee of $2,971 for a single family home would rise to $8,976

Many roads are at grade F, which means the county needs to build more roads and now.  How would this affect the housing market?

Re-sales would instantly be more attractive, and this would hurt home builders who are already being squeezed by rising construction costs and limited buyers who can afford any increase at all. 

Sometimes a builder can pass along extra fees to the buyers, however buyers are already being hit by rising insurance costs, rising property taxes, rising interest rates, and higher prices.  Each one adds on top of the other until at some point less and less buyers can afford to buy a new home.

The obvious choice is to buy a used home, perhaps a little older or in an outlying area, or rent.  Raising the impact fees may curb growth, but it won’t help pay for new roads which we need now if less people build because of the new fees.

Similiar sized counties to Lee County already have lower impact fees than Lee, so tripling the road impact fee will just make that situation worse.  Somehow growth needs to pay for growth, so there is no easy solution.  Nobody in Lee County would argue that the roads are fine in their present condition.  The argument is who should pay for new roads.