INDIAN RVIER COUNTY — After months of controversy and many meetings the county commission today voted 4 to 1 to refund some of the money in Fund 101 to island homeowners. The approximately $1.2 million in the fund includes $132,000 in unspent traffic impact fee collected on the island prior to 1999 along with interest accrued on that amount and other spent impact fees.
County staff had recommended spending the $1.2 million to improve the A1A/17th St. intersection, but the matter was complicated by a county ordinance that requires impact fee money to be spent within six years of being collected.
The same ordinance allowed a one-year period after the six-year period in which fee payers or their successors could apply to have their fee money refunded. According to the ordinance, if no application was made during that one-year period, the refund was waived.
Options considered by commissioners during several hours of discussion and public testimony included spending all the Fund 101 money on intersection improvements, returning all the principle and interest to island property owners or returning only the $132,000 and interest accrued on that amount.
Commission Chairman Gary Wheeler has called this matter the most difficult ever to come before the commission and commissioners had a hard time reaching a decision. They asked searching questions of county staff and Charlie Wilson, the former Vero Beach city councilmember who has led the charge to get impact fees refunded to island residents for more than a year.
Wilson strongly advocated returning the entire amount in the fund to 400 people he believes are due refunds.
In the end, the commission decided there was no clear legal certainty about the correct course but that the weight of moral consideration inclined toward some type of refund.
In the final vote, Commissioners Joe Flescher, Wesley Davis, Peter O’Bryan and Wheeler approved O’ Bryan’s motion to refund the unspent $132,000 and interest accrued on it, approximately $400,000.
The rest of money will be used for intersection improvements.
Commissioner Bob Solari voted against the motion because he wanted all the money returned to property owners.
“This was a step in the right direction,” said Wilson after the decision, which was a personal vindication for him and his views on impact fee law. “They have been able to deny, delay and deflect for over a year, but we finally proved that refunds are due. There are 130 people out there we having been talking with who will be very happy. Unfortunately there are 290 people who have just been left at the table, and I am not willing to abandon those people.”
