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Delray commissioners move forward on fire service fee

By Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — A fire service fee for Delray homeowners and businesses inched closer to reality Tuesday evening.

Delray Beach commissioners approved a resolution that legally authorizes the fire service for this budget year and next. Delray has debated establishing a fire service fee for several years — both Boca Raton and Boynton Beach have had fees for years — but has resisted going there. Declining property tax revenue prompted the move, and commissioners viewed the fee as a more equitable solution than hiking property tax rates.

Despite Tuesday’s action, the fee is not on the books — yet — but the failure to adopt the fee would put a major hole in the city’s current budget. Commissioners are likely to hold a public hearing on the fee at their Jan. 3 meeting.

The fee as proposed would raise $3.4 million. Residential rates vary between $52 and $263 a year, depending on the square footage of the home. Commercial rates similarly vary based on square footage.

Christina Morrison Pierce, representing the Park Ten business park, asked commissioners to take a second look at rates for industrial and light industrial properties. She said the business park now pays about $300,000 in property taxes; the fire service fee as it’s now proposed, would add $15,000 to the bill.

“Industrial properties have suffered greatly,” Pierce said, referring to the toll the recession has taken on business. “We sit with significant vacancies, pay high taxes already and now you want to hit us with another.”

Commissioner Tom Carney cautioned against looking at specific tax bills but rather rates for particular types of property. But he agreed commissioners need to review commercial rates, particularly industrial, to ensure whatever the city charges is fair and won’t discourage new business from setting up shop in the city.

Delray will bill the fee this budget year, but the resolution adopted Tuesday calls for the fee to be included in county property tax bills that will go out next fall.

In other matters, commissioners gave their OK to a proposal from the Delray Beach Preservation Trust to put a time capsule in the lobby of City Hall to be opened when the city celebrates its bicentennial in 2111.  The time capsule would show how Delray Beach presently looks.

The preservation trust says it has a donor interested in underwriting the project.

Commissioners also approved final readings of a series of ordinances that amend flood-zone building regulations, set limits on the length of time tents can be used for public assemblies, ups pension contributions police officers must kick in and clarify limits on in-lieu parking spaces a business may have.

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NOVEMBER 16, 2011 click to go home
 
         
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