St. Tammany Parish Impact Fees

The St. Tammany Parish council decided last year to impose impact fees on both residential and commercial development. The local Home Builders Association was able to reach an agreement with the council in order to lower the fees on residential, but, unfortunately, no one argued on the side of the commercial developers. Part of the reason is that commercial developers tend to come from outside of the Parish. The fee on commercial development is a staggering $3,000 per 1,000 square feet. If a company wants to build a 10,000 square foot building, they have to pay an additional $30,000 to the parish! Well, the unintended consequence of this commercial development impact fee is that, not only are companies not going to come to St. Tammany parish, the fees are also forcing local businesses to move out of St. Tammany parish when they want to build a larger building. Check out this article as an example.