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Council debates park impact fee formula; staff recommends adopting 50% of calculated fee
Summary
Public Works presented a revised park impact fee analysis tied to the newly adopted CIP; staff recommended adopting a per‑square‑foot residential fee and setting the council‑adopted fee at 50% of the maximum defensible calculation to fund 10 years of projects while keeping fees moderate.
Duvall staff presented a consultant update to the city’s park impact fee methodology and recommended a council decision about the fee level to support the capital project list in the recently adopted parks, trails and open‑space plan.
City Engineer Larissa Grandel summarized work by consultant FCS to align the park impact fee with the city’s 2024 PTOS capital improvement project list. The consultant calculated a maximum defensible fee that uses occupancy and average dwelling‑unit square footage to generate per‑square‑foot residential fees and a per‑1,000‑square‑foot approach for nonresidential uses. Staff reported the consultant’s residential calculation yields a per‑square‑foot fee near $16 (derived from an average dwelling size of roughly 2,000 square feet and an average occupancy of about 3.08 persons per dwelling) and noted a maximum per‑unit metric in the report of roughly $11,000 for certain unit sizes.
Because impact‑fee statutes require defensibility and a balanced funding approach, staff recommended council adopt a fee at 50 percent of the calculated maximum so the city can accomplish the first 10 years of projects in the capital list while keeping fees more moderate than the full calculated maximum. Staff explained that prior jurisdictional comparisons are partly out of date because many neighboring governments are themselves updating their fee methodologies after recent state guidance.
Council members debated the balance between funding infrastructure and keeping housing costs reasonable. Some council members argued that a higher, defensible fee better funds parks and reduces the need for other revenue sources; others said lowering the fee could modestly support smaller homes and affordability and that additional tools—such as fee discounts tied to deed‑restricted affordable units or development agreements—can be used to promote affordability directly.
No final fee ordinance was adopted at the meeting. Staff said it will return an ordinance for council action and that council direction on the target percentage (staff suggested 50%) is needed to draft that ordinance and the nexus study documentation required by state law.
