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ZEBULON - The Pike County Impact Fee Advisory Committee met on November 5, 2025 and November 19, 2025. Pike County Times listened to the November 5, 2025 meeting and attended the November 19, 2025 meeting. [Note from the Editor: Thank you to Planning and Zoning Director Jeremy Gilbert for recording the November 5, 2025 meeting.]

Members on the committee are Jason Leatherman, Brandy Loggins, Chad Proctor, Edward “Ed” Penland, Kacie Edwards, Shannon Mullinax, and Christy Bird.

[Note from the Editor: This is a recommending board that is required by our ordinances and state law in order to make changes to our Impact Fees. The Pike County Commission will make the final decision on anything dealing with Impact Fees. We did not have this Board when we changed our fees to go to the max in 2023. Readers can read more in depth on this process and review the Impact Fee ordinance in the Breaking News article in which an attorney has written a letter to the county advising of a possible lawsuit regarding current Impact Fees at www.pikecountytimes.com/secondary/BREAKINGNEWSimpactfeeletter10.14.25.html.

Click here to read the October Draft of the Pike County Impact Fee Ordinance: pikecountytimes.com/secondary/PikeCountyImpactFeeOrdinanceDRAFT10.15.25.docx. ]

Impact Fee Committee Meeting - November 5, 2025

Discussion showed that a lot of time and effort has been put into this with questions being asked as to what needs could be met by Impact Fees over the next 5 years, reading done on the ordinance itself, and research on Impact Fees in general with Pike being compared to other counties that have them.

There were questions about agreements with cities since we collect Impact Fees for all of our cities except for Zebulon. And Zebulon is a hotspot for growth. They don’t contribute to the county’s services loans but are collecting water-related fees including capital recovery. The collection of Impact Fees in other cities includes the county providing services so we can collect impact fees in their jurisdictions.

Discussion of higher density growth being where there are services like water and sewer. City residents also pay county taxes on top of their city taxes so they can say that they are already paying county taxes. Maybe a discussion of updating service delivery strategy? Intergovernmental agreements?

There was an attempt to take the numbers from 2006 and try to make them match the growth that has been seen in the county. It can’t be done. The numbers don’t match. But those numbers are all that can be used according to state law.

The committee noted funding sources like SPLOST (penny sales tax), LMIG (state grant that helps with road improvements), and CDBG (community development block grant with specific restrictions). Need to work on fee schedules and recommendations on the ordinance for commissioners.

There are also needs for new fire equipment, etc. that will have to come from taxes if they are not Impact Fee eligible. Money that is collected must be spent within guideline restrictions within 6 years of collection.

Numbers from the Methodology Report were used to combine with needs for the next 5 years that were given to the Committee Chairman to try to come up with a number for Impact Fees. It came to about the same thing as we have now for residential Impact Fees. This was with an emphasis on being able to justify what is being charged.

Discussion about recommending a residential Impact Fee number now so it isn’t the topic of discussion at the next meeting. $6,798.85 was suggested. Consensus to go with this. Chairman Leatherman said that he would put his thoughts on paper and email it to everyone before the next meeting. The percentages below were also discussed. Some were a carryover from the first meeting.

$6,798.85 for residential Impact Fees.
Library 11.43%
Parks & Rec 100%
Animal Services 0%
Fire Protections 59.90%
Emergency Management 100%
Sheriff’s Office 100%
Road Improvements 100%

Discussion about property assessments being increased to get to the sales ratio as was mandated by the State of Georgia, the millage rate being rolled back, and the tax digest that was outdated because it wasn’t approved until July of this year and a methodology that was really outdated because it was done two years ago.

At the end of the day, the money is going to have to come from somewhere to fund the county. And we need smart growth which includes commercial growth.

Motion to go with Jason’s numbers on Impact Fees for residential. Approved.

[Note from the Editor: I’m going to leave this here without elaboration because Bill Ross is going to answer the question of whether residential and commercial have to be the exact same amount in the next meeting, and that throws a monkey wrench into everything that has been done so far.]

November 19, 2025 at 2 p.m.

Members Ed Penland, Shannon Mullinax, Chad Proctor, Christy Bird, Kacie Edwards, Jason Leatherman, and Brandy Loggins were present along with CM/Attorney Rob Morton, Planning and Zoning Director Jeremy Gilbert, and Bill Ross from Ross and Associates.

Impact Fee dollars paid $92,000 or so for the Bill Ross and Associates to update our Impact Fees. CIE Prep fee pays for updates, etc. dealing with Impact Fees. [Note from the Editor: It was stressed that this money did not come out of the General Fund to pay for Impact Fee Methodology, etc. Basically the fees are required to keep the program running so it has to pay for itself. By the end of the meeting, you’ll understand why I said this just this blunt.]

The job of this committee is to advise the commissioners what they should be collecting for Impact Fees.

Questions. Residential versus Commercial with price per square foot. Residential is based on housing units. Fees are same for residential except for road improvements. Those numbers relate to the number of vehicle trips per day generated by various uses. Higher trips have higher fees. Lower trips have lower fees. Single Family Detached Housing can be as high as high as $5,206.52. A recreational or 2nd home can be as high as $1960.40. Non-residential doesn’t pay for library or parks and recreation. The group can discuss the amounts to be charged and change from the maximum for category in the county.

Where did the data come from? Commercial per square foot. Is that number actually correct? The numbers look really high. 1,000 square feet rather than 1 square foot. Average sales price of new homes from $490,709 from Zillow. The other numbers are from ITE. An office building has an Impact Fee of $7.27 per square feet for 40,000 square feet. Engineering News Record publications are where they got their standards on this. [Note from the Editor: With these numbers, a 40,000 square foot business would have an Impact Fee of $290,000. A 400,000 square foot business would have an Impact Fee of $2,908,000. How many businesses will come to Pike County for that?!]

They came up with a target number at the past meeting.
$6,798.85 for residential Impact Fees.
Library 11.43%
Parks & Rec 100%
Animal Services 0%
Fire Protections 59.90%
Emergency Management 100%
Sheriff’s Office 100%
Road Improvements 100%

Want to reduce fees to be acceptable. But this is based on future growth. Why would we ever charge less than the maximum number? Anything less is an arbitrary number. Discussion. Jason talked to each department head on what they would need over the next 5 years.

Discussion on residential and how it ties to commercial impact fees. $300,000 for a supermarket. The commercial is so much that we’ll never get a supermarket. Can we adjust commercial one by one? No. Impact Fees have got to be fair with everyone paying the same amount/percentage.

Ross. Anything that does not come out of Impact Fees will come out of the General Fund. [Note from the Editor: This kept being said, but if other counties have found other ways to function without Impact Fees, why can’t we research that too?]

More discussion. If y’all don’t like the target number for the commercial, pick that percentage so it will go across the board for everyone. Is there a way to set the percentages for commercial and industrial differently than the residential? No.

Ross. There is an appeals process in Impact Fees. However, if there is a change to our ordinances, we can allow that. More discussion. We changed the fee for residential only in 2023 so things are not equal right now.

But there has to be a way to differentiate between residential and commercial. The county is allowing those in cities to use our facilities, etc. but the growth will come from cities. Service delivery strategy? How do we pay for our services? We can’t make them pay for it.

The Board is stuck where they are at. There isn’t a way to get past this. This is the only fee that allow counties to fund future services. Whatever is exempted has to come from the General Fund. A grocery store like Publix is not going to pay money to get in here if they think that they are going to be charged a million dollars in Impact Fees. They are not going to go through the process to ask for less Impact Fees.

Nobody believes that this is right path, and we can’t come up with a recommendation based on this Methodology Report.

Ask Rob to research things from a legal standpoint so we can have different commercial percentages than residential? Ross. Newton County ended up in court over this.

Consensus to close the meeting. Will meet again when Rob has the information that we need. This request will be given to the commissioners on Tuesday at the meeting.

[Note from the Editor: So not only did we NOT follow our ordinances OR state law when we made changes to Impact Fees without an Advisory Committee or public hearings when we made changes in 2023, we ALSO broke the rules by making a change to Residential Impact Fees without changing everything for every category across the board. The extra money that was taken from those building homes in our county over the past two years needs to be refunded.

We are one of a few counties in the state that still have Impact Fees, and the rules governing how the program is administered could be a part of why other counties are being creative to get away from Impact Fees. The more I see on this, the more I think that Impact Fees need to go away for Pike County. We need to be studying what others are doing and taking a path that is a better fit for our county because high Impact Fees will keep business out of our county, and we desperately need other sources of tax revenue besides residential home owners.]

3:22 p.m.

Click here to read my notes from the first Impact Fee meeting.

Click here to read "BREAKING NEWS: Pike County Government Put on Notice Regarding Impact Fees." Side note: Commissioners voted to NOT return Impact Fees at the past meeting.