Impact Fees in Port St. Lucie

Port St. Lucie charges one-time impact fees on new construction for parks, law enforcement and public buildings, plus a mobility fee, adopted in October 2021, that replaced the city's road impact fees.

The Port St. Lucie Mobility and Impact Fee Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2023, as summarized in the city's 2025 parks master plan, defines mobility and impact fees as a one-time fee assessed to new construction to help cover the costs of increased demand for public services and infrastructure resulting from new development (Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update, 2025). The same summary names the three city impact fee categories revised in 2023: Parks, Law Enforcement and Public Buildings.

Roads are handled differently. The city's FY 2023-24 adopted budget says the Mobility Fee was adopted by the City Council in October 2021 and that mobility fees have replaced city road impact fees collected from developers and builders in Port St. Lucie, with uses that include bike lanes, sidewalks, trails, transit and roads (FY 2023-24 Adopted Budget Book). The Planning and Zoning page posts the Mobility Impact Fee Schedule separately, labeled effective 2022 (Planning and Zoning fees page).

The Port St. Lucie Planning and Zoning Department posts each Development Impact Fee Schedule by its effective date, and as read on October 22, 2026 the posted schedule not marked expired was labeled effective 6/30/26, with earlier schedules marked expired.

The list is on the city's Planning and Zoning: Applications, Fees and Guides page, which posts the schedules as PDFs; the per-unit amounts sit in those PDFs rather than on the web page. The Building Department's permits and fees page separately posts Single-Family and Duplex Impact Fees, labeled Effective Oct. 1, 2026. The Planning and Zoning page lists 772-871-5213 for questions.

The Planning and Zoning page also posts an Impact Fee Credit Process Summary and a Developments of Regional Impact Draft Impact Fee Study, and it warns that the City of Port St. Lucie does not accept payments by wire transfer; anyone who receives wiring instructions for a city payment is asked to call 772-871-5213 (Planning and Zoning fees page).

On May 8, 2023 the Port St. Lucie City Council adopted revised impact fee schedules, raising the parks and law enforcement fees and lowering the public buildings fee under the Extraordinary Circumstances provision of state law.

The 2025 parks master plan, summarizing the FY 2023 annual report, gives the ordinance numbers: 23-27 for Parks, 23-26 for Law Enforcement and 23-23 for Public Building (Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update, 2025). The plan says the Port St. Lucie revision used the Extraordinary Circumstances provision in the Florida statute.

For Port St. Lucie or any Florida city, section 163.31801, Florida Statutes makes that route require a demonstrated-need study completed within the 12 months before adoption that expressly shows the extraordinary circumstances, at least two publicly noticed workshops dedicated to those circumstances, and approval of the increase ordinance by a unanimous vote of the governing body.

Florida law makes Port St. Lucie give 90 days' notice of a new or higher impact fee, caps a raise at 50 percent and allows one raise every 4 years, unless the extraordinary circumstances route is used.

The phase-in rules that bind Port St. Lucie in section 163.31801 are specific. An increase of not more than 25 percent of the current rate must be implemented in two equal annual increments, and an increase above 25 percent but not more than 50 percent in four equal installments. An increase may not be retroactive, and a local government need not wait 90 days to decrease, suspend or eliminate a fee. New or increased fees generally may not apply to permit applications submitted before the effective date, unless the result lowers the applicant's total fees.

The statute also sets the ground rules for any Port St. Lucie impact fee: collection may not happen earlier than issuance of the building permit; the fee must be proportional and have a rational nexus with both the need for capital facilities created by the new construction and the spending of the money; collections are earmarked for capital facilities that benefit new users; and contributions such as land dedication or construction must be credited against the fee (Florida Impact Fee Act). Each year the city must file, with its annual financial report, an affidavit from its chief financial officer attesting that impact fees were used as the law requires.

Port St. Lucie's public building impact fee page calls the fees one-time charges on new development for building or expanding the public facilities new residents need, and lists Ordinance 25-42 among its documents.

The city's Public Building Impact Fees page collects the record of the 2025 update: a first workshop on Tuesday, July 22 with 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. sessions, a City Council meeting on Monday, July 28 and a City Council workshop on Monday, Aug. 4, all at City Hall in the Council Chambers, 121 SW Port St. Lucie Blvd. Its documents include a draft dated 7-22-25, the Public Building Impact Fee Study dated 7-29-25, a draft dated 8-4-25 for the council meeting, the workshop question and answer session, and Ordinance 25-42. Questions go to Planning and Zoning at planning@cityofpsl.com or 772-871-5213.

The fee has paid for at least one past building. The FY 2023-24 adopted budget says the city paid off the debt for the Torrey Pines Institute building in Port St. Lucie the previous year using revenues generated from public building impact fees instead of requiring General Fund support (FY 2023-24 Adopted Budget Book).

Port St. Lucie collected $3,690,208.17 in parks impact fees in 2023 and averaged nearly $3.3 million a year over the preceding five years, according to the FY 2023 annual report summary in the 2025 parks master plan.

The rows are from the Parks and Recreation Master Plan Update, 2025, which also projects $32,500,000 from impact fees among its 10-year capital funding sources for parks. In the city's FY 2023-24 adopted budget, the Parks Impact Fee Fund, #305, was adopted at $24,390,263 and the Police Impact Fee Fund, #109, at $2,741,714; the budget describes the police fee as helping fund the equipment costs associated with new officers (FY 2023-24 Adopted Budget Book). That budget also projected mobility fee revenues of $7.2 million for Fiscal 2023-24, supporting 28 projects within the five benefit districts.

No: Florida's Impact Fee Act states that it does not apply to water and sewer connection fees, and Port St. Lucie Utility Systems posts its connection and conversion charges on a separate schedule.

The exclusion is in subsection (12) of section 163.31801. For Port St. Lucie homes converting from a well or septic system, the city's water and sewer conversion rates sheet for October 2026 lists conversion fees paid in full of $7,335 for water only, $9,445 for wastewater only (low pressure) and $16,780 for both in USA/SAD areas, and $8,045, $11,417 and $19,532 outside those areas, with a 10-year, interest-free payment program and grants of up to 50% of the cost in some cases.

For those Port St. Lucie charges, the sheet directs callers to the City Hall Connection Support Office, 772-873-6400, to learn whether a grant applies. Last verified: October 22, 2026, when the Planning and Zoning schedule list, the public building fee page, the Building Department fee listing, the state impact fee act, the FY 2023-24 fund pages, the parks plan's annual report summary and the October 2026 conversion sheet were read afresh.