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Support Schools, Support Kids. Make Growth Pay For Growth.

August 9, 2020

Charge Developer Impact Fees - August 20, 2020 City Council Decision.

Quick Summary: Take action to help schools before August 12. Charge developers for schools needed to serve new development and prevent over $7,000,000 in new taxes (email below).



In July, the Enumclaw School District’s staff made a political recommendation to discount the allowable amount they can collect from land developers for new school construction (developer school impact fee) by a whopping 50%. 

The District estimated new schools will cost at least $28,000 per new house built. They then determined under state law that the cities of Black Diamond (and Enumclaw) are allowed to collect
from developers over $17,900 per new house. Unfortunately, when Black Diamond’s Ten Trails development was approved by the City Council in 2011, the maximum developer school fee for it was capped at $12,453. 


The Enumclaw School District should urge Black Diamond to collect the full fee allowed by law, or the Ten Trails cap, whichever is applicable. Our students, and our taxpayers, need those funds. The money would directly help students and better their education. However, the School District asked the City for only $8,900 per new house built in the district, and only $6,282 for multi-family residences.



For schools, developers should pay their full share. Developers can contribute more to the school district rather than pocket that money as profits, so that schools will be built when needed for the children in the community.


Every dollar that is not collected in impact fees must be paid by taxpayers instead. That is why land development impact fee ordinances are often referred to as taxpayer relief ordinances. For every dollar not collected from developer school fees,
the risk to our students and schools - the risk of voters rejecting a tax increase for new schools - increases.

We did the math: By 2025, Black Diamond’s “Ten Trails” alone expects to grow by 2,352 new housing units. Based on current estimates of new single family vs multi-family units, the difference between the allowable development fee in Ten Trails and the School District’s recommendation is
$6,427,800.


(Sadly, if the 2011 agreement had not set caps, the amount that could be collected is $20,000,000. Even that still leaves taxpayers footing a large bill when tax bond time comes.)



Since additional new units in Black Diamond are expected outside of Ten Trails that are unconstrained by the 2011 cap, well over $7M in allowable developer school fees may not be collected over the next five years. If you add the hundreds of units expected in Enumclaw, the amount transferred unnecessarily to taxpayers exceeds $10,000,000. (Data Source: Enumclaw School 6-year capital plan passed July 20, 2020)



Divided by voters in the Enumclaw School District, that is about $530 per voter. After 2025, more building is expected with up to 5 additional new schools needed. The precedent set now will also affect those future taxes.


We can fix this by acting prior to August 12, and no later than the Black Diamond Council decision date of August 20th. 



We recommend that in support of students, you contact Enumclaw School District Board Members. Email:  Jennifer Kent sjkent@q.com, Bryan Stanwood bryan_stanwood@enumclaw.wednet.edu, Tyson Gamblin tysongamblin@gmail.com, Jennifer Watterson Jennifer@northback.com) and offer the following comments:


1.    Voter support for School Bond Issues is higher when land developers pay their fair share of the costs of building new schools to support new development.



2.    Developers should be required to pay as much as possible for the costs of new school construction. In Black Diamond, developers are causing all of the new school needs we will have.



3.    The City has the legal authority to charge a full impact fee and the School District should not recommend special discounts for land developers.



4.    The District should ask the City of Black Diamond to collect the maximum legally supported land development school impact fee. 



5. The Board's July 20 suggestion of a 50% discount amounts to shooting our schools in the foot. The cost to taxpayers is at least $6,000,000 and likely tens of millions of dollars. The Board should not recommend reducing developer fees. That is a city council decision because the cities are the ones permitting the growth.



6.    Black Diamond City Council should collect the maximum fee from developers of $17,900 (less a 5% discount for legal cushion), and $12,453 where limited by previous agreements, per single family home. 




October 25, 2021
The 2020 appeal was filed after the City finished the 2020 update in May of 2021. Here is the closing brief documenting the Citizen group's findings . The City had erroneously assumed there would be 3 or 4 lanes on State Highway 169, but has no funding or project to widen this road.
June 14, 2020
There is a process the city must follow as they update the Comprehensive Plan, which means there are ways we can plan to be engaged to stop the Rezone (the up-zoning shown in the 2019 Future Land Use Map). The more people who comment, the better chance of success. The Black Diamond Comprehensive Plan changes is THE key document to control (or curb) future development. The Planning Commission could recommend removal of potential up-zones of over 1,000 from the Comprehensive Plan that were slipped in without analysis last year. Steps: 1. The Planning Commission will meet, possibly multiple times, then set a public hearing date. 2. The Public Hearing on potential changes to the Comprehensive Plan should include the public's suggested changes, per BDMC 16.10.140. 3. The Planning Commission will have the chance to review and vote on each individual Comp Plan amendment suggestion to create a formal "preliminary docket" recommendation to the City Council. Staff may try to prevent votes on the public's suggested amendments by asking the Commission to take one vote on staff's recommended changes and rushing the Commission. 4. The City Council will meet publicly and adopt the recommendations as written, or hold their own public hearing if they wish to make changes. The schedule is for Council review in November, and adoption of the Comp Plan changes in December. Commenting to the Planning Commission more than once is worthwhile, because a commissioner spends a short time reading your comments, but a long time in meetings run by staff who have opposed the public's changes. Developer School Impact Fees: On this issue, staff informed the Commission that the developer school impact fee to help pay developer's share of new schools is still something City government is likely to do. The staff plan is to work on this via an "emergency" process for adoption prior to December. The Planning Commission will hold a separate public hearing on adopting changes that will allow Developer School Impact Fees. There will be a Council meeting on the same topic.
June 7, 2020
Since 2011, the Enumclaw School District has asked Black Diamond to adopt a developer fee of $12,000 per unit of new housing. Similar changes are needed in Tahoma and Kent School District. This would offset the approximately $35,000 in capital cost per unit of new housing it will actually take to build new schools. Any money not collected by these developer fees is passed on to voters (YOU) for a new school tax bond to be added to your real estate taxes. In March 2020, Black Diamond started the process of changing the Comprehensive Plan to include school district capital plans. This would allow the Council to finally decide to collect developer school impact fees. However, the Planning Commission must act first, and the March Planning Commission meeting was cancelled. Now in June the Planning Commission agenda does not include this issue. This inaction sets us up for schools crowding and higher taxes. To avoid residents of Black Diamond and Enumclaw paying even more for schools (in addition to the 7 proposed schools in Ten Trails that will already require tax increases for over 90% of their cost), the city needs to adopt developer school impact fees. The city should set them at the maximum $12,000, because even this maximum will still leave the majority of the burden of new school costs on taxpayers.
June 7, 2020
The people filled the meeting chambers to oppose more up-zones at the Planning Commission public hearing October 2019. People commented that with the massive Ten Trails development already quadrupling the city, adding even more dense development would be harmful. The Commission received specific requests that the city remove future up-zones for dense housing and commercial from the Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map. These requests were made at Commission meetings and in email follow-ups. However, it appears now in June 2020 that the city is ignoring its requirement to review Comp Plan suggestions from the public [1]. Black Diamond has already approved more than 4 times the local growth required by the Growth Management Act. The issue is so bad that the Puget Sound Regional Council is requiring the city to avoid actions that will further over-shoot its Growth Targets [2]. To comply, the city should remove potential zoning for more Medium Density Residential and Commercial. Inaction this year sets us up for road and traffic problems. If traffic is bad now, we haven't seen anything compared to the added density of the proposed up-zones. The best way to reduce traffic is not to add the land development in the first place. That's why removing new residential and commercial from the Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Map is so important. [1] Black Diamond Municipal Code 16.10.130.B. [2] https://www.psrc.org/sites/default/files/eb2020feb27-agenda.pdf
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