New residential construction requires additional municipal services - streets, sewers, schools, playgrounds, libraries and more - to support the new people living in these homes. State law allows cities to pay for adding capacity to municipal services by assessing “impact fees”.
For example, the City of Bellingham currently collects transportation and school impact fees. These fees, collected when new building permits are issued, pay for widening streets and building new schools to serve our growing population. Without these impact fees, taxes would have to be raised to support these costs or services would have to be reduced. Impact fees help allocate municipal costs more equitably among the existing and new residents of a community.
City of Bellingham officials are considering adopting a parks impact fee to add capacity to our parks and recreation facilities. Fees would be collected on new residential construction, and used only to purchase, build or improve parks and recreation facilities, not for maintaining or operating these facilities.
Citizens of Bellingham currently pay for parks and recreation operation, maintenance and services in two ways: through general taxes and user fees. When new people move here they start paying for parks in the same ways, but they also add more park users. More users means a lower level of service; for example, longer lines for playground equipment use, not enough baseball fields for all who want to play, and more crowded parks. If park impact fees are approved, new developments in Bellingham will pay a fee that will be used specifically to add capacity to the parks system, helping raise the level of service back to where it was prior to the new development.
All citizens in our community, existing residents and new ones, appreciate the quality of life in Bellingham, and understand that parks, trails and open space are a key part of that quality of life. Greenways is a way for everyone in the community to add to the open spaces that are protected, and to add to the developed parks and trails systems, to improve our quality of life, whether we are growing or not.
We need the impact fees to make sure our levels of service don’t erode, and to make sure new development pays their fair share. We need the new Greenways levy to continue to protect our open spaces while we still can, and to further develop our premier parks, trails and recreation facilities.
New residential construction requires additional municipal services to support the new people living in these homes. State law allows cities to pay for adding capacity to municipal services by assessing “impact fees”. An impact fee is charged on new development to pay for its proportionate share of the impact to public facilities, allowing local officials to allocate the costs of necessary new services among new and existing residents.
Under the state Growth Management Act, public facilities and services must be adequate to serve new development without decreasing existing levels of service. Cities are authorized to impose impact fees on development as part of the financing to extend the capacity of public facilities to meet this requirement. But they cannot rely solely on impact fees. They must provide a balance between impact fees and other funding sources.
Impact fees allowed by state law include transportation, school, fire and parks. The City of Bellingham currently collects impact fees for transportation and school facilities. The city doesn’t collect fire impact fees because no new facilities are planned to be constructed in the next six years.
City of Bellingham officials are considering adopting a parks impact fee to add capacity to our parks and recreation facilities for our growing population, as allowed by state law. These fees may only be used to purchase, build or improve parks and recreation facilities, not for maintaining or operating these facilities. City officials propose using park impact fees to assist in paying for the capital facilities portion of the Bellingham Comprehensive Plan, which reflects the goals of the 2002 Parks, Recreation and Open Space Plan. Specific projects include: acquisition of land for new parks and trails in developing areas and development of ballfields, playgrounds, picnic shelters and other park facilities needed to serve the additional population.
As proposed, the park impact fee would be assessed on new residential land development in Bellingham, collected when a new building permit is issued for a new residential dwelling unit.
The park impact fee will not increase property, sales or other taxes. The fee will only be paid by someone taking out a building permit for a new residential dwelling unit.
The proposed fee for new single family residential units is $3,891.51 and for a new multi-family unit $2,851.67.
Based on the proposed fee and our community’s projected growth, the parks impact fee would generate an average of just over $2 million per year.
A park impact fee will assure that new development bears a proportionate share of the cost of capital expenditures necessary to provide parks, recreation, and open space improvements in Bellingham.
Funds collected from park impact fees will be used solely for the purpose of acquiring and/or making capital improvements to citywide or local parks under the jurisdiction of Bellingham, and will not be used for maintenance or operations.
The growth impact requirement caused by population increases created by new developments is determined by:
The existing level-of-service is t he ratio of park and recreation land and facility units (acres, fields, square feet, etc.) to the number of persons in the population (expressed in units per 1,000 persons). The existing level-of-service (ELOS) includes all park and recreation land and facility units that have been improved to the present time and funded for improvement within the current capital facilities program (CFP).
The Bellingham City Council will determine a final fee, if any, based on recommendations from citizens, the Bellingham Planning Commission, and staff. The proposed fee level was recommended by the citizen steering committee that participated in the development of the Parks, Recreation and Open Space plan and by the Planning Commission. The proposed fee is 35% of the actual per-person value of the existing level of service.
The Park Impact Fee ordinance will allow for appeals, refunds, exemptions and credits for dedication of land or improvements in lieu of fee payment as approved by the Parks and Recreation Director.
