Agenda - Planning Commission - 11/05/2009

Home

Zoning Bulletin July 25, 20091 Volume 31 No. 14 ! ('). Impact Fees-Landowner/developer challenges imposition of park fee I () ( ) -::-3' Having already contributed. land for a neighborhood trail, it seeks exemption from the fee Citation: Belleau Woods II, LLC v. City of Bellingham, 2009 WL 1449053 (Wash. App.. Div. 1. 2009) . WASHINGTON (OS/26/09)-BeIleau Woods II, LLC owned land in the city. It entered into a planned development contract{the "Contract") with the city, effective July 2004. Under the contract, Belleau was to de- velop 7.39 acres in the city with apartments. Section 20 of the Contract conditioned the development on Belle~u paying "impact fees for both park and trails" prior to building permit issuaf.lce. Section 20 allowed that the city's Parks and Recreation Department (the "Department") cOtPd accept "construction of improvements or land dedication in ,lieu of [payment of impa~t fees for both park and trails]." The Department agreed to accept from Belleau a conservation easement for a public trail as satisfaction of Section 20. The Department explained that the fee for trails would be waived in consideration .of the land dedicated for a future . trail. The Department informed Belleau that the "total park fee" would be $8,912.34-based on the acreage of the property and the increased . need the development would create for neighborhood parks an~ trails. . Two years later, the city adopted a p~rk impact fee ordinance (the "Ordinance"). The Ordinance provid~d for the collection of park impact fees. at the time of building permit issuance for residential development activity. A provision of the Ordinance (the "A6b Exemption") provided that where a developer had already mitigated park impacts pursuant to an agreement with the city, the development activities' would be exempt- ed from payment of impact fees. The next provision of the Ordinance further provided for credit against park impact fees for dedications of land that predated the Ordinance if they were made pursuant to the cap- ital facilities plan. In the fall of 2006, when Belleau applied for a building permit, it was informed that it would have to pay a park impact fee of $111,215.13. It eventually paid the impact fee. under protest and appealed to the city's hearing examiner. Belleau argued that its previous dedication of land pi1rsu~t to Section 20 of the Contract fell within. the A6b :J;.xemption. The city disagreed. It contended that the previous dedication of land for a trail had only partially mitigated the park impacts of the development. The hearing examiner held that: (1) the Contract did not give Belleau a vested right to develop the property exempt ftom the later-enacted Or- dinance; and (2) the prior land dedication did not satisfy the terms of @ 2009 Thomson Reuters 9 I 61