Request for Qualifications with Price Proposals
RFQ/P
#
46-018
For the provision of
Impact Fee Study
for Hall County
Hall County, a municipal entity of the State of Georgia, Board of Commissioners, (herein “County”) is soliciting proposals from qualified consultants for an Impact Fee Study for Hall County.
The County, like many areas experiencing growth, uses impact fees to help fund infrastructure improvements needed to serve new development. These fees are assessed by developers to ensure they contribute to the costs of public facilities like roads, schools, parks, and utilities. The county's impact fee program is outlined in its Official Code of Ordinances in Chapter 3.100.
Purpose:
It is the County’s intention to award one (1) consulting firm for all the Services listed herein. For the purpose of this RFQ/P the terms “Consultant”, “Bidder”, “Proposer” and “Firm” are to mean one-and-the-same.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
Bid Post Date:
July 7
th
, 2025
Bidders’ Questions Due Date
: Thursday, July 17th, 2025
Bid Due Date:
Thursday, July 24th, 2025, 2:00pm EST
Purpose of Impact Fees:
The primary purpose of impact fees in Hall County is to ensure that new development contributes a fair share of the costs associated with providing public services to those new residents. This helps to prevent new growth from placing an undue burden on existing infrastructure.
Types of Impact Fees:
Hall County's impact fees are categorized as various public facilities including libraries, parks, and public safety facilities (fire rescue, EMS, and law enforcement including the County jail, personnel and related equipment of the Sheriff's Office. Of great importance is looking into a road improvements category.
Funding for Impact Fees:
Impact fees are used to fund the costs of expanding public facilities and services, particularly capital improvements that have a lifespan of over ten years. Ongoing operations and maintenance are not typically funded through impact fees.
How Impact Fees are Calculated:
The calculation of impact fees often involves a study to determine the cost of providing additional capacity for new development and then allocating that cost proportionally among new developments.
Impact Fee Credits:
In some cases, developers may be eligible for impact fee credits, which can effectively reduce the amount of impact fees they are required to pay. These credits may be awarded for actions that benefit the community, such as providing affordable housing or donating land.
Legal Basis:
The ability for local governments to levy impact fees is rooted in the Development Impact Fee Act (DIFA). DIFA allows municipalities and counties to assess fees for the additional capital needed for new facilities and services. The County is seeking to obtain proposals from firms qualified and experienced to provide expert assistance relating to the County’s impact fees. The selected firm will deliver an updated impact fee study, rate schedule, and related recommendations for any changes. The review will consider changes in all the inputs to the methodology used in the impact fee study to calculate the fees, as well as potential improvements to the methodology itself. The study will cover impact fees for roads, parks, public safety, and libraries for both residential and non-residential land use types.
Governance:
The County’s Impact Fees are governed by The Hall County, Georgia – Code of Ordinances, Part 1, Official Code, Title 3 – Revenue and Finance, Chapter 3.100 – Development Impact Fee, 3.100.010 – 3.100.400.
Existing Fee Schedules:
Bidder’s must review Attachment A. Fee Schedule – Hall County Outside of [the City of] Gainesville and Attachment B. Fee Schedule-Inside City of Gainesville for reference.
Bidding Process:
Hall County, Georgia (herein “County”) is now accepting sealed bid proposals from qualified Consulting firms (herein “Bidder” or “Consultant”) for Comprehensive Impact Fee Study Services (herein ‘Services’). The County will accept sealed bids in the Purchasing Division on the fourth (4th) floor of the Hall County Government Center, located at 2875 Browns Bridge Road, Gainesville, GA 30504, Thursday, July 24th, 2025, by 2:00pm EST. Late bids may not be evaluated. All bid packets must be sealed. Additionally, all packages must be time and date stamped by the Hall County receptionist located on the 4
th
floor to be considered.
Term:
The Study shall be delivered from the Notice-to-Proceed until final complete within
Ninety (90) days.
Schedule of Fees:
Bidder’s proposed schedule of fees, if accepted, shall be firm and fixed for the initial contract term.
Definitions:
For the purpose of this RFQ/P, the terms “Contract”, “Letter of Engagement”, and “Agreement” shall mean one and the same. Furthermore, the terms “Bidder” and “Consultant” shall mean one and the same. “Bid Packet” includes all documents of this solicitation, its Exhibits, and attachments.
Contact:
Address all questions and communications solely to Andy Penick, Purchasing Manager at
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for clarification to any part of this RFQ/P requirements.
Public Reading
: Bid openings are open to the public. Bidders are not required to attend but may do so. The Issuing Officer named herein will open and publicly read all proposer’s company names and location on the date, time and address above. Cost will not be read at this time.
Addendums:
If needed and in the best interest of the County, Purchasing may make any extension of the bidding period by a formal written addendum and publicly posted on the County website. All Addenda must be signed by the bidder and returned with the bid packet.
Proposal Documents:
Bidders may obtain all submittal documents at no cost via the
links provided below to download all required documents. Any Addenda will also be posted at the bottom of the solicitation as needed and bidders are responsible for checking Addenda. Addendums must be signed and returned along with the Bid Packet.
Pre-Bid Meeting:
Not required for this solicitation. The County may interact with bidders one-on-one in demonstrations or interviews.
Request for Clarification:
The County reserves the right to request clarification of information submitted though a written Request-For-Clarification. The County may also request in-person, virtual presentations or interviews, and may choose to enter into negotiations with potential bidders as needed.
Bid Response:
The County considers a bid response as an irrevocable offer, good for a period of sixty (60) days from submission. Furthermore, the County reserves the right to reject all proposals, in full or partial, and to negotiate fees, conditions, or other terms with the respondent submitting the overall best scored proposal. Furthermore, the County may cancel the RFQ/P in its entirety if in the best interest of the County. The County may waive nonmaterial irregularities, informalities, and errors and seek clarification of such.
Legally Binding Agreement:
The County and the selected Firm shall enter into a formal agreement; substantially in the form of the attached EXHIBIT – B CONTRACT FOR SERVICES by counter signing the contract with an execution date. Contracts are only valid if they are countersigned by the County’s Chairman of Commission. Bidders should sign the Contract and submit it with their bid response. All questions regarding the Scope of Services should be included in the response to the Proposal. If there are no written objections, then the County will take this as an affirmative acceptance of the Scope of Services as it is presented.
EVALUATION METHODOLOGY
Technical Qualifications & Proposal Response:
Bidders must answer all ten (10) Mandatory Questions found on Exhibit G – Mandatory Scored Questions, which are weighted and will be scored by the County’s evaluation committee. The County’s Evaluation Committee will score and assign point values to the answers. The total maximum points are set at 1,000. The County has assigned an 80%/20% split for scoring points; eight hundred (800) points available for Technical Qualifications, and two hundred (200) points available for the Cost Proposal. The bidder with the highest total score closest to 1,000 will be the apparent contract award winner.
This RFQ/P poses ten (10) mandatory scored questions valued at a maximum eight (80) points each for a combined total of eight hundred (800) potential total points. Proposers are required to answer all the Mandatory Scored questions. Skipped questions will return a 0-point score. The proposer’s response should limit answers directly to the questions asked. Each answer will be scored on weighted scale points as shown below.
Poor = 0 points
Marginal = 20 points
Adequate = 40 points
Good = 60 points
Excellent = 80 points
Bidders may expand their answers to the questions onto separate pages if needed, with the question repeated at the top of each page, in addition to the space provided next to each Mandatory Scored Question Worksheet. Bidder’s may input “see attached” in the space provided next to each question.
Please do not submit bound bid responses. Provide one-sided documents only. Do not include superfluous marketing brochures nor unnecessary promotional materials. These will not be evaluated. Address each specific question with direct, detailed answers.
Bidder Response:
Technical Qualifications
Each bidder must provide six (6) sets of hardcopies, with one (1) marked “Original” and five (5) marked "Copy"" of their Technical Qualifications response.
Cost Proposal
Each bidder must provide six (6) sets of hardcopies, with one (1) marked “Original” and five (5) marked "Copy"" of their Cost Proposal response.
Combined Digital Response
Additionally, bidders must provide their response on one (1) USB drive with two (2) folders therein, one entitled “Technical Qualifications”, containing your technical response, and one (1) entitled “Cost Proposal”. Do not include your cost proposal in the technical response folder as this may cause your proposal to be rejected.
All quantitative material should include complete assumptions and be supported by detailed schedules, evidencing all calculations and results.
Responses to the questions should be clear and concise. Where appropriate, Bidder’s should show statistical information in a tabular chart format, and textual information in bullet form. Summarize key points at the beginning of each answer.
Evaluation and Selection:
The County will evaluate all submittals in accordance with the Official Code of Hall County, Georgia 3.10, and as further detailed herein. The County will evaluate proposals using a two-step process. The first is the ‘Technical Qualifications Proposal’ that outlines the bidding firm’s qualifications and experience and its approach to deliver the services, followed by a Cost evaluation.
Cost Evaluation:
This solicitation is heavily focused on a Firm’s qualifications, experience and capabilities. Therefore, award may not be made solely based on the lowest cost bid. Cost will be given more importance when all the other evaluation criteria are relatively equal.
The County may deem an unreasonably low cost, and the highest cost, as materially unbalanced. In such cases then the County reserves the right to reject the proposals. One method of measuring reasonableness is to divide the proposed cost by a reasonable average hourly rate to show hours of effort that might be expected.
Although cost is not the driving consideration for award, it is a vitally important component. If, in the County’s consideration, qualifications between two or more bidders are equal, then the County may make an award to the lower cost bidder among them. The County will evaluate cost as presented on Exhibit C - Mandatory Cost Proposal Worksheet. The cost is weighted and will be scored by the Evaluation Committee. Lower cost will receive higher scores. Any and all fees should be detailed in the response, if applicable.
Validation:
Bidders must sign and notarize their submittals. Digital signatures are acceptable. Hall County requires that bidders provide a cover letter with a signature by an officer of the firm with the submittal to ensure its originality.
Bid Retention:
The County reserves the right to retain all proposals submitted and use any idea(s) in a proposal regardless of contract award or not. The County shall have the right to waive any informality or irregularity of immaterial deviation, omissions and clerical errors in any bid received.
Mandatory Documents:
Bidders must complete and return all forms and documents entitled ‘Mandatory’ with the bid proposal. Failure to do so may deem the proposal non-responsive and the County may not evaluate it for award.
Award Process:
The County reserves the option to reject any or all bids, in whole-or-in-part, or to select any bidder to complete the described Service. The County will not make an award of contract solely based on lowest bid, but also on approach, references, qualifications and other subjective criteria as the County may deem necessary and determine at its sole discretion.
Questions:
Bidder’s must present all questions in writing and directed solely to the issuing officer at
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.
