Overview
In a time of rampant housing affordability challenges, this 2025 James Madison Institute (JMI) backgrounder report “Assessing Florida Local Government Impact Fees: 2024-2025” serves as a timely regulatory reassessment and extension of the practical and instrumental policy work by Adam Millsap, Samuel Staley, and Vittorio Nastasi in the 2018 JMI report “Assessing the Effects of Local Impact Fees and Land-use Regulations on Workforce Housing in Florida.” Since 2018, significant changes have been made to the fee structures. This analysis reflects the most recent schedules as of January 1, 2025. This update of the original report draws from recent impact fee schedule numbers for the cities of Bradenton and Fort Myers as well as for the counties of Manatee, Sarasota, and Lee, and extends the assessment to include Sumter and Collier counties.
This report reviews the regulatory challenges facing Floridians who need to construct more homes and have more types of housing options. This report also offers Florida cities and counties guidance on how to better approach and refine fees in order to right-size the burdens on builders and homeowners which, after all, is the goal of the fee. Housing policy is not a one-size fits all approach and impact fees should not be either.
Introduction
The American dream of owning a home is becoming more of a far off or an unattainable goal for a growing number of American households. Floridians are feeling the financial pinch on their budgets due to the rising cost of housing significantly outpacing their household incomes. Even working-class families who were once able to make steady progress towards their dream of owning a home may experience challenges now as renters, many who are struggling to cover the costs of monthly rent plus household expenses.
Housing costs have been steadily climbing as a growing population is forced to compete for a limited supply of quality homes. The shortfall of housing is so significant across the country that the White House even pitched a Housing Supply Action Plan in 2024 to support the construction of new homes, reduce regulatory barriers, cut bureaucratic red tape, open up more lands for housing, create loan and grant programs for home repairs and rehabilitations, and encourage more affordable units. Communities with pro-housing policies were also suggested to receive infrastructure investment. Though some specifics of the 2024 plan have been discontinued in 2025, increasing housing supply remains a priority for housing affordability.
Read the backgrounder, “Assessing Florida Local Government Impact Fees: 2024-2025,” here.
County Profiles
