George's Information and Comments

Growth Impact Action Committee

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Proportionate Shares

•          Consider a  new community. It must tax its members to pay for the public facilities it requires (including public education, police and fire protection facilities).

•          It is appropriate and fair to require later developments and so, indirectly,  new community members or others who do benefit from those public facilities, to contribute their proportionate share of the value of  public facilities they make use of to the extent those new developments could not build or pay for their own (in addition to the taxes for ongoing maintenance and operating expenses they will share with prior community members).

Fair Dollar Value to Ascribe to Proportionate Shares

A dollar value ascription to proportionate shares that seems fair to all parties would be the sum of the proportionate share of the depreciated value of existing and previously planned public facilities minus outstanding bonds and debt service (that everyone shares) minus federal and state contributions PLUS the proportionate share of the cost of a proposed development’s newly required facilities including bond and debt service minus federal and state contributions.

Proportionate Share of Existing and Previously Planned Facilities

A fair proportionate share to ascribe to existing and previously planned facilities that seems fair is the sum of:

For schools: the number of the predicted students that a newly proposed development will add divided by the total number of K-12 students in Horry County

For fire protection:the predicted private real property value of a newly proposed development divided by Horry County’s total depreciated private real property value.

For police protection: the predicted population of the new development divided by Horry County’s total population

For the increased load on county roads external to the development: the predicted population of the new development divided by Horry County’s total population (an obvious alternative, although not as easily determinable, would be the estimated traffic volume on roads external to the development added by the development divided by Horry County’s total traffic volume on roads external to developments).

Proportionate Share (Usage) of New Facilities

A fair proportionate share to ascribe to new facilities that would not have been required except for the new development would, in general terms be the statistical usage requirements of the new development taking into consideration public facility capacities where that that is determinable, say schools and jails, and for those for which that is not determinable, the number of people currently served by the particular type of public facility divided by the population of Horry County (ratio of people served by a particular facility to county population) times the number of people in the proposed development -- except fire protection in which case, the predicted private real property value of a newly proposed development divided by Horry County’s total depreciated private real property value (the difference in treatment from existing fire protection facilities being that new bonds and debt service are not to be deducted from the dollar value to be proportioned).

For schools: the estimated number of K-12 students in a proposed development (say the average number of K-12 students per housing unit county-wide, or more pinpointed estimates taking into account the number of bedrooms in a housing unit or the fact that the development is to be a senior community) divided by the capacity of the newly required school facilities.

For jails: the number of people currently in county jails divided by the population of Horry County times the number of people in the proposed development divided by the capacity of the newly required jail facilities.

For other public facilities, except fire protection facilities, in which specific statistical usage requirements or facility capacities are not determinable: the number of people currently served by the particular type of public facility divided by the population of Horry County (ratio of people served by a particular facility to county population) times the number of people in the proposed development

Note: A development agreement, no more than an adequate public facility ordinance, should be based upon what is right, not negotiation ploys seeking agreement among parties.