Oregon City commissioners direct staff to refine parks SDC methodology; debate whether to include recreation center cost

Oregon City commissioners on July 16 discussed revisions to the city’s parks system development charges (SDCs), including a proposal to tier multifamily fees by number of bedrooms and whether to include $9.1 million for a proposed Recreation and Aquatic Center (RAC) in the SDC capital plan. Staff will rewrite the draft methodology and return to the commission at its Aug. 20 meeting for formal consideration.

The changes under consideration would (1) move from a single multifamily rate to a bedroom-based tiering system for units of more than five units, and (2) alter how much of the recreation and aquatic center cost is funded by SDCs. Parks staff said the draft methodology currently allocates $9,100,000 toward the RAC; staff presented two alternatives for commissioners to consider: reducing that allocation to $5,000,000 or removing the RAC allocation from the SDCs entirely.

Scott Archer, parks director, said the proposed Recreation and Aquatic Center has an estimated total cost of about $40 million and that any reduction in the SDC allocation would need to be made up from other revenue sources. Archer noted that because the SDC calculation is driven by the capital plan, removing or reducing the RAC amount changes the fee schedule and the relative rates paid by different housing types. Archer also said the public hearing requirement was met at the commission’s June 18 meeting and that the June hearing was carried forward to the work session for further direction.

On multifamily charges, staff told commissioners that a bedrooms-per-unit method is simpler to administer than a square-footage approach and would reduce fees for smaller units while increasing them for larger, three-plus-bedroom units under the current capital plan. Staff said the methodology must be recalculated to reflect the bedroom tiers and that the city’s consultant — who prepared the original draft — was unavailable for the work session but can be engaged to redraft the methodology.

Commissioners discussed the trade-offs between relying on SDC revenue to help fund a large facility versus preserving SDC capacity for other qualifying park projects. Staff said the city currently holds roughly $7.5–8 million in the parks SDC account and that the total capital plan for SDC-eligible projects is roughly $145 million; under those figures, the $9.1 million RAC allocation represents about 6 percent of the capital plan.

Commissioners expressed differing preferences: several said they would not support removing the RAC from the SDCs entirely, and opinions split between retaining the full $9.1 million allocation or reducing it to $5 million. Commissioners and staff also discussed financing alternatives — including revenue bonds and general obligation bonds — and noted that a general obligation bond would require voter approval while revenue-bond options may not. Staff clarified that financing decisions are separate from the SDC methodology and would be considered later if the commission chose to pursue borrowing against future SDC revenue.

Following the discussion, commissioners gave staff direction to redraft the SDC methodology reflecting the bedroom-tier approach for multifamily units and the range of RAC funding options discussed, and to return to the commission on Aug. 20 with an updated methodology for consideration.

Ending: No formal vote was taken during the work session; commissioners instructed staff to bring back a revised SDC methodology for action at a future regular meeting on Aug. 20.