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in new rental housing,s4 Vadous proposals were m;:~¢:!e to waive impact fees for housing 15rojects that were intended to benefit those ,,,ith Iow or moderate incomes. Ultimately the county decided against gral'~ing any waivers or exemptions of this type. Instead, it chose to entertain requests by such organizations for county appropriations sufficient to defray the costs of paying such fees. Exemptions may also violate the common stat,:: constitutional requirement of free public schools. The problem was i':lustrated recently in the 1991 Florida Supreme Coud decision in St. Johns County v. Northeast Fla. Builders' Ass'n, Inc.ss The school impact fee ordina,~~ce adopted by St. Johns County, Florida, provided the feepayer with an alter~':-'~ive to paying the impact fee established in the uniform schedule of fees. In e. ence, it allowed the feepayer to avoid the fee if the feepayer showed by ;'-.equate documentation that no children would be living in the feepayer's part! ular dwelling unit. The court found that under this provision, property owne~ .... ,vho warranted that their children would attend private school or that they had no children could be made exempt from the fee with the understanding that if thc, -e circumstances changed the fee would have to be paid. According to the court, this provision meant that 54. The incidence of impact fees and olher exactions has been widely debated. Several researchers recently have concluded thai in the case ot impac~. ., home purchasers and renters do in fact absorb the greatesl portion of the costs. Owner; ,f raw land absorb a small portion of the costs. Developers are unlikely to absorb any sig~ ,Jant portion of the costs, at least in the long run. See Forrest E. Huffman, Jr., et at., "Who Bear'.~ Impact Fees?" in Development Impact Fees, Arthur C. Nelson, ¢ 1980), 320-21. 55. 583 So. 2d 635 (Fla. 1991). 54 Burden of Development "hicago: Planners Press,