Plans to increase mobility rates in Osceola County will take a vote next week

OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — The Osceola County commissioners will consider voting for the Mobility 2024 fee on Monday, even though builders questioned the data used to create the fees.

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Nine Investigates recently reported that the county was to charge more than $25,000 to homeowners building in the county to help pay for transportation updates to the roads.

Now, there is a slight reduction in fees.

Wes Robbins is the president of the Greater Orlando Builder’s Association.

GOBA is fighting back on the Mobility 2024 fees in Osceola County.

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Robbins said the issue they don’t understand is the math the county’s consultant used to calculate the figures.

The builder’s consultant found that the data was flawed, and those numbers were dropped slightly, but there are questions about those figures, too.

They believe the county has to get this right because a lot is on the line.

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“A lot of people wanna blame housing affordability on so many things, but I will tell you that it is a supply and demand basic econ 101, you don’t have enough houses, the prices go up and nobody comes for it,” Robbins said. “And I will tell you also as a business owner in Osceola County, most of my employees can’t even afford to live within the county then. So they’re having to travel in, which is having more impact on more roads and more counties and just exacerbate the problem.”

Earlier this week, the county manager made a memo updating commissioners before the vote.

It said the staff has been working to refine the proposed Mobility Fee Ordinance and show them how the fees were calculated and why the adjustments were made.

The county told Channel 9 in a statement:

“HNTB has a broad General Engineering Consultant contract with Osceola County, which was competitively solicited. They were engaged for this project under that contract. HNTB is a qualified planning and engineering firm with the technical expertise to calculate the cost of mobility.”

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