Should a 3,000 sq. ft. home pay workforce housing fees?

If you are trying to build a modest house or an accessory unit, this is the kind of technical rule that can change the total bill by thousands. On Monday, June 1, the Planning Commission is set to discuss a Land Development Regulations amendment that would raise the exemption for affordable workforce housing mitigation from 2,500 to 3,000 square feet for detached single-family homes and Accessory Residential Units (ARUs). In plain English, more “smaller” homes would avoid paying the mitigation fee, and if a home expands past 3,000 square feet later, the mitigation rules would apply to the entire unit, according to the Planning Commission staff report.

What I will be listening for is the tradeoff: staff notes that if the county issued 28 permits for 3,000 square foot single-family homes, it would forgo about $468,272 in mitigation fees (about $16,724 per home). Those fees are one of the ways the county funds its affordable workforce housing program, so the question is whether the exemption encourages more attainable-size homes without undercutting the pot of money that helps house the workers our schools and kid programs depend on.