DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEE ADVISORY COMMITTEE Wednesday, Boise Depot Meeting Station MINUTES I. Call to Order Committee Vice Chair, Corbin Harp, called the meeting to order at 11:59 a.m. II. III. Attendance: Development Impact Fee Advisory Committee (Committee) members: Colleen Fellows, Jill Giese, Corbin Harp, Barbara Helling, Maximilian Teems, Amber Van Ocker were present. David Yorgason was absent. City of Boise: Eric Bilimoria, Abigail Germaine, Tom Governale, Joshua Leonard, Rob Lockward, Jennifer Tomlinson, and Tonya Wallace were present. Jenn Stevens, minutes recorder. New Business A. Welcome New Members Introductions were given. New members introduced themselves. Colleen Fellows and Barb Helling. B. Minutes February 10, 2016 A. VAN OCKER MOVED THAT THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEE ADVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVE THE FEBRUARY 10, 2016 MEETING MINUTES. SECONDED BY M. TEEMS. THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. C. Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) Update T. Wallace explained the key objective was to have the support of the Committee for the CIP changes and the impact fee schedule. The process to update the impact fees was started at the end of 2013. The Boise Parks and Recreation Department (Parks) fee schedule was still in place from 2004. The Boise City Fire Department (Fire) and Boise City Police Department (Police) fee schedule had not been updated since 2008. The fees did not include inflationary factors and were for new capital infrastructure to support growth. She stated that as the City of Boise (City) grew, new infrastructure was required to be able to maintain service levels. The first step was to project future growth and what infrastructure would be required to serve the projected growth. The infrastructure was put into a Capital
Page 2 of 7 Improvement Plan (CIP); this committee went over the CIP for Parks, Fire, and Police. The CIP was on a ten year plan. T. Wallace explained the process for Parks to develop the CIP. Parks projects were done in phases, adding those projects to the CIP helped to capture the needs of the Parks to make room for the growth and changes which can take up to ten years, or longer, to develop a site. The development process included: the search for land, acquire the land, greened up the land, and add amenities. In some cases, this was a process that stretched out over a couple decades. Parks had two main groups of projects: regional projects that serve the entire City of Boise and the area of impact; like Marry Ann Williams Park, Esther Simplot, and sports complexes, the other group was the local parks that serve smaller areas like neighborhoods. C. Harp asked if Ann Morrison and Julia Davis were considered regional parks. T. Wallace explained the two parks were regional parks. T. Wallace presented the updates for the Open Space and Clean Water project. The City had a successful levy pass for ten million dollars. The committee was asked to add this to the approved CIP. Then the updated information would be adopted and the City can budget and allocate the resources at a future time. T. Wallace presented the Golda Harris Reserve project. The estimate to develop the donated land was $300,000. T. Wallace showed work that had been going on between Parks and Planning and Development Services (PDS) to create a plan for downtown Boise (Downtown) for public spaces. Examples were public plazas and significant spaces. The plan had been worked on for approximately one year and was nearing finalization. Specifications were not clear at the time and this had been purposed, for updating the CIP, to serve as a placeholder for future execution of the plan in developing Downtown. There was an estimated $2 million cost for this project. T. Wallace explained that the Molenaar Diamond Community Park restroom project, that was previously added to the CIP, was noted because this was partially funded by impact fees. T. Wallace also presented accelerated projects. The City was able to accelerate projects in the CIP, at the end of January 2016, due to general fund dollars, from closing out fiscal year 2015. Funding that was not used in fiscal year 2015 was saved. The Mayor and City Council elected to accelerate projects, that were already in the plan, move these up in the time line. Examples shown were: Franklin Park Site green up, accelerated 2 years;
Page 3 of 7 Franklin Park Site amenities, accelerated four years; Sterling Park Site green up, accelerated three years; and Alta Harris Community Park Site, accelerated ten years. A. Van Ocker asked if City Council decided what projects were accelerated or were the projects chosen by default by being next on the list. T. Wallace explained the projects that were chosen and funding approved for, through City Council, were Franklin Park Site green up and Sterling Park Site green up. Funds for the Franklin Park Site amenities had not been allocated yet. The Alta Harris Community Park Site acceleration had not yet been funded. A. Van Ocker asked if this acceleration was being purposed by Parks. T. Wallace explained that Parks was working with this Committee on the proposal. C. Harp asked when the projects were being accelerated to. T. Wallace clarified the year expected was 2019. T. Wallace explained the deferred and cancelled projects. The West Boise Treatment Plant pathway had been pushed out to the second ten years, after 2024. Although impact fees were not affected, the updates, replacements, and remodels were also deferred by four to five years. The Eckert Road Underpass was cancelled entirely. T. Wallace presented the recommended funding modifications. The boat ramps and trails were recently awarded grant money, thus reducing the amount of impact fees required. A proposal of a fifty/fifty cost share with sports groups, had been proposed for the Charles F. McDevitt Youth Sports Complex and Optimist Youth Sports Complex expansions. Boise River Park, phase two, and Esther Simplot Park modification was recommended due to the City leveraging dollars with donation dollars which had changed the project funding significantly. C. Harp asked if the cost sharing, previously mentioned, was an assumption or if that had already been discussed and decided. T. Wallace stated they assumed there would be a financial strategy and a campaign to fundraise with the various groups who use those fields. She added that cost sharing had been successful in the past and gave an example of adding field lights, as well as other assets, at Optimist Youth Sports Complex. T. Wallace stated the net of all of the changes, to the Parks CIP, for the new capital costs was an increase of $12.5 million. Total level of service was measured as park value, per person, and there was an increase in overall level of service.
Page 4 of 7 She shared graphs to show what was driving the increase. There would be a $162 million increase in park value, per person, by fiscal year 2025. A project like Esther Simplot Park, which was mostly funded through donations, was going to be a significant asset to the City. The cost share was $74.9 million from which 48% was attributed to new growth and 52% from existing. The funding was not coming from new growth; only about 25% or about $19 million of impact fees would come from new growth. Largely due to donations and grants, about half of the cost was covered, leaving only half of the cost to be paid by the new growth, increasing the levels of service and providing more assets to the City, at half the cost. Regarding the impact fee schedules, there was an overall decrease for the residential square footage unit for the average single, family detached home. There was also a decrease in accessory dwelling units and smaller units. $1.36 million would come from impact fees to go toward new capital costs. Downtown would see a significant decrease due to not having a local park, and without any proposed local park projects. A. VAN OCKER MOVED TO APPROVE PROPOSED CHANGES TO PARKS AND RECREATION CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN IMPACT FEE SCHEDULE. SECONDED BY J. GIESE. THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. T. Wallace spoke about updates for Fire s CIP. There were cost adjustments, a decrease of about $30,000 for two new proposed brush trucks, in the Fire CIP. Fire eliminated a new Optimcom project, which dealt with the traffic light control and alerted fire trucks to respond to incidents. Overall there was an increase of $103,689 to the Fire CIP. For the impact fee schedule, there was a decrease, in the average single family unit and industrial units, and an increase for non industrial units. T. Wallace identified there was a difference in impact fees between Fire and Police. The impact fees for Parks were only for residential units. Fire and Police impact fees were charged for on residential and non residential units. The current impact fee schedule was the same fee, regardless of the size or type of residential unit. For non residential the charge was the same, per one thousand square feet. In the past year and a half, there had been a careful review of the non residential units and a reassessment of the impact fee schedule that proportionally allocated the cost. One of the goals of the review was to align Fire and Police impact fees with the Parks impact fees, so that residential units were defined in the same way with all of the same categories.
Page 5 of 7 J. Giese added her synopsis of the fee schedule as, the larger the property, theoretically, the larger number of people were on the property, and the more people on the property, the more requests for service from Fire. T. Wallace agreed with J. Giese. For Fire and Police, the basis for the impact fees were the number of people in the residence and for the non residential, the number of calls to the different types of areas. J. Giese stated a warehouse didn t have very many calls in comparison to a highly populated, non residential area, like the mall. C. Harp specified that was why there was large difference in the fee, in the separate categories for industrial like a warehouse and non industrial like an office or retail property. T. Wallace recognized there was potential for some resistance from the nonindustrial category due to the change, from a blended base rate, to the proposed increase. She added there would likely be a campaign to get this information out to the non industrial properties, informing them that the proposed rate was based upon the burden of service requested, rather than on size of property. C. Fellows asked about non industrial response requiring more resources than residential property. T. Wallace responded that more resources were generally dedicated to the larger industrial properties, at one time, even though there were overall less calls. T. Wallace explained that she did not have any specific data to speak to that matter directly. She shared that it was known that over 70% of calls were Emergency Medical Services (EMS) calls. A. VAN OCKER MOVED TO APPROVE PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE BOISE FIRE DEPARTMENT CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN AND IMPACT FEE SCHEDULE. SECONDED BY M. TEEMS. THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. T. Wallace noted there was no change to the new capital projects for Police. There was a change to the firing range; however, the firing range was not a new project. She explained the service level for Police was determined by the square footage of the dwelling unit, for each sworn officer. A small decrease was expected to total levels of service, by fiscal year 2025. The cost and funding share, attributed to new growth, was 100% attributed to new growth. The proposed 10,000 square foot new precinct was attributed to new growth. Strategically, the best place to place new officers was between the Downtown precinct and City Hall West. The Police impact fees did result in an increase. Impact fees were based upon the number of calls for service, which was the same methodology that had been applied to Fire.
Page 6 of 7 A. Van Ocker questioned how Boise compared to other cities levels of service for Police. T. Wallace responded, when it came to impact fees, the structure used was the most common methodology found to determine the fees. Calls for service was the dominate way to allocate the cost to different land use categories; there was no alternative way other than calls for service. C. Harp addressed the regional comparison for impact fees. T. Wallace said she would need to look into it, due to the complicated nature of what was included in fees from other cities, nationwide. The most common difference was additional categories in the non residential area. She stated at this time drawing comparisons was very difficult and that additional efforts would be put into this in the future. She added there would be additional outreach done to the commercial sector, to see what issues may be encountered with the proposed changes. The data was very clear to support the identification of separate categories in the non residential sector. For Fire she had used five years of call data and Police she had used three and a half years of call data. The amount of data was statistically valid. T. Wallace explained that the next step was to go over the presented changes to City Council, reach out to the commercial sector about the changes, and this went well, then the next step would be the public hearing phase in order to get the CIP and impact fee schedule adopted. D. Esther Simplot Park Update J. Tomlinson presented a slide show of recent photos on the Esther Simplot Park job site. She highlighted information about the park location and size. The design had a many ponds and beaches. She shared a photo and explained about the submerged vehicles that had been placed, at the bottom of one of the ponds, for Fire rescue training. She mentioned the park would have a dog off leash area as well. The projected completion was said to be summer 2016. T. Governale explained the construction would be completed by early July. The opening date was unknown at that time because the park had to allow for time to let the plant materials to take hold. The public was very excited about this park, so the demand was high. He stated that, ideally they would like to open the park a year from now, but doubted they would be able to wait that long. E. Americana Greenbelt extension update
Page 7 of 7 J. Tomlinson showed updated photos of the area near Joe s Crab Shack. The tunnels would be completed by May 2016. The underpass had just been finished. C. Fellows asked about the elevation of the pathway in regards to flooding during higher water flows for the Boise River. T. Governale explained that the path was at 6,500cfs, so that the pathway would not flood. This meant that it should be dry most of the time. He recognized there were going to be some years where it could be flooded. C. Harp mentioned the section of the Greenbelt they were viewing was the last remaining section that wasn t connected yet. IV. IN THE MATTER OF ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business to come before the Committee at the time, the meeting was adjourned at 12:49 p.m. A. VAN OCKER MOVED THAT THE DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ADJOURN. SECONDED BY C. FELLOWS. THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.