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to the responsibility of a local government to protect public <br />health, safety, and welfare. <br />i,f the question is one of adequate public facilities, the <br />issue, then, is who should be financially responsible for such <br />adequacy? The reality is that the community and the property owner <br />are the only available candidates to bear such responsibility. It <br />may be argued that the community should be financially responsible <br />for needed facilities, because it is the community that benefits - <br />new housing, job creation, and tax base enhancement. However, it <br />may also be argued that imposing such costs upon the community is <br />unfair, since it had no part in the decision to develop the <br />property and may receive no direct benefits from the development. <br />Increasingly, the answer is that a community need not absorb <br />all costs but may impose a proportionate, or fair, share of such <br />costs upon new development. Impact fees presuppose that new <br />development should pay a proportionate share of facility costs. In <br />this context, proportionate share would generally be less than <br />total cost and more than nothing. <br />Use of Impact Peep <br />' Impact fees are generally confined to payments for capital <br />facilities and allow the community to provide the capital <br />facilities that new development will require. Nationwide, impact <br />' fees have been established to pay for capital improvements to the <br />following facilities and services: <br />1 <br />Potable Water <br />Solid Waste <br />Arterial Roads <br />Local Roads <br />Parks <br />Fire Protection <br />Public Buildings <br />Emergency Medical Services <br />Sewers <br />Drainage <br />Collector Roads <br />Public Schools <br />Public Libraries <br />Law Enforcement <br />Public Cemeteries <br />Under Title VI, Chapter 460, of the 1987 Session Laws, Orange <br />county may impose impact fees within its planning jurisdiction for <br />land acquisition for open space and greenways, capital improvements <br />to public streets, schools, bridges, sidewalks, bikeways, on and <br />off - street surface water drainage ditches, pipes, culverts, other <br />drainage facilities, water and sewer facilities, and public <br />recreation facilities. Chapter 324 of the 1991 Session Laws enables <br />Orange County to impose impact fees'for school capital improvements <br />countywide. <br />DETERMINING THE QUANTITY OF NEEDED IMPROVEMENT8 <br />The objective of determining a proportionate share of costs is <br />to insure a degree of fairness in impact fees. Proportionality <br />calculations begin with a determination of physical quantities of <br />facilities that new development will require. The need for such <br />Page - 3 <br />