Oregon City commission advances parks SDC methodology; staffs to start public-notice process

Oregon City commissioners on Tuesday reviewed an updated methodology for parks system development charges and directed staff to return the proposal to the Parks, Recreation and Aquatic Committee (PRAC) and begin the statutorily required 90-day public-notice and hearing schedule.

The commission heard a presentation from Deb Gallardi of Gallardi Rothstein Group, the city's SDC consultant, who said the revised package includes an updated project list, separated land acquisition and park development costs, and new residential and nonresidential charging schemes. "We are back before you with updated systems development charge calculations and, project list and schedule," Gallardi told the commission.

The changes discussed would add two projects to the SDC-eligible list: a 3-to-5-acre neighborhood park within the Park Place concept area and a redevelopment component at End of the Oregon Trail that focuses on parkland and SDC-eligible amenities. The consultant also reported that the growth-share SDC cost basis — the portion SDCs are designed to recover from future development — totals about $43 million, and that the overall SDC cost basis (including reimbursement and compliance components) is just over $51 million. Gallardi said reimbursement-fee capacity in the update is roughly $7.8–8.0 million and can be used on capital projects beyond the specific project list.

The commission debated a policy question central to nonresidential development: whether neighborhood-park costs should be allocated in part to nonresidential projects. Commissioner Mike Mitchell urged excluding neighborhood parks from the nonresidential calculation, saying the higher charge would make commercial development less competitive: "I would advocate for, not including neighborhood parks in the nonresidential calculation," Mitchell said. Commissioner Scott Wilson agreed: "I agree with Commissioner Mitchell." Several commissioners said excluding neighborhood parks from the nonresidential SDC would keep the city more competitive with neighboring jurisdictions.

Gallardi described how the methodology allocates growth-share costs between residential and nonresidential development. Using updated Metro employment-density data and averaged nonresidential categories, the consultant reported a split that allocates about 8.7% of SDC costs to nonresidential development and 91.3% to residential development under current assumptions. She cautioned that including neighborhood parks in the nonresidential allocation materially increases the per-employee charge — in the presentation, examples showed the cost-per-employee rising to over $1,000 in a scenario that included neighborhood parks, compared with much lower current per-employee charges under the existing methodology.

The updated residential schedule uses a tiered approach based on dwelling size and assumed occupants. As an example, Gallardi presented an illustrative range for a typical single-family unit between 1,800 and 3,000 square feet: a combined in-lieu-of-dedication (land acquisition) and development SDC near $12,000 per dwelling if neighborhood parks are allocated across all new development (roughly $4,500 for acquisition plus $7,500 development in the example). She emphasized that the acquisition component is intended to be credited or waived where land is dedicated at plat to avoid double charging.

Commissioners also affirmed a staff proposal to consolidate and simplify nonresidential use categories (fewer, broader groupings based on Metro data) to reduce administrative complexity and the number of look-back reclassifications when uses change. Staff explained the consolidated categories are commonly used in the region to provide a defensible average employees-per-1,000-square-feet figure for fee calculation.

No formal adoption vote took place. Instead the commission provided direction on key policy questions, agreed there was no objection to consolidating nonresidential categories as proposed, and asked staff to bring the methodology to PRAC for review and then begin the 90-day public-notice timeline required by Oregon law. City staff said they will prepare methodology documentation for the public 60 days before the adoption hearing and that a placeholder was set for the February meeting cycle to begin the process.

The presenters and commissioners repeatedly distinguished between discussion items (policy choices such as whether to include neighborhood parks in the nonresidential split), direction to staff (send the package to PRAC and start required notice), and formal action (no ordinance or SDC adoption was passed at the meeting).

What happens next: staff will present the methodology to PRAC, post methodology documentation for a 60-day public review period ahead of the adoption hearing, and schedule the required hearing after completing the 90-day notice period. Several commissioners asked staff to consider a simple, administrable phase-in or implementation approach for projects already through platting or subdivision approvals rather than a complex tiered grandfathering matrix.

Votes at a glance: none — the meeting produced direction but no formal votes on the SDC methodology.