Camas Council approves park impact fee overhaul

The Camas City Council this week approved updates to the City’s park impact fees that will charge developers more for larger homes and create new categories for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and commercial-industrial developments. The impact fees, paid by new development, will help Camas pay for park improvements that accommodate new residents and employees. “We are a system that is ambitious ... and wants to provide the best for our community,” Camas Parks Director Trang Lam told Council members during their June 17 workshop. “Unfortunately, with the (park impact fee) rates we have now, and new housing coming in, we are behind.” Lam, who will soon begin her new role as the Port of Camas-Washougal’s chief executive officer, said city leaders have two options: keep the same impact fees and scale back on future parks projects and parks and recreation needs or increase the park impact fees paid by developers and be able to meet some of the parks and recreation demands those new residents and employees will put on the Camas parks system. “The reality is that, even if we start collecting (increased fees) now, we’re still behind,” Lam told Council members this week. “If we do nothing now or scale just slightly above, we will continue to fall further behind.” The Council voted 5-2 during its regular meeting on Monday, Aug. 5, to approve the new park impact fees recommended by the Camas Parks Commission, with Councilors Leslie Lewallen and Jennifer Senescu casting “no” votes. “I think impact fees have become another source of revenue for cities that may or may not be associated with the actual reason that they’re there for,” Lewellan said Monday. “I disagree that this does not impact the cost of a home. It trickles down to the folks who need it the most — first-time homebuyers. A lot of folks need homes. I’m going to vote wholeheartedly ‘no’ to this.” Senescu said she was standing on comments she’d made in June, when she said she was against “doubling” the fees for developers who wanted to build homes over 2,600 square feet. “People here can’t pay for water, sewer, garbage but we want to charge double,” Senescu said during the June 17 workshop. “People are concerned about affordable housing in Camas. To double what we have is concerning to me.” Other Council members pointed out that the impact fees are not something that current homeowners pay — or even fees that new homeowners or residents will pay on an ongoing basis — but something developers pay one time to ensure that population growth is paying its share of the new infrastructure the City will need to accommodate new residents and employees. “It’s not double for anyone living in a house,” Councilman John Svilarich told Senescu in June. “It’s built into the cost of a house.” Lam and consultants explained that the new park impact fees are in keeping with new state laws that are intended to encourage the development of smaller, more affordable housing units dictate that Washington cities must scale their impact fees based on square footage, number of bedrooms or trips generated for residential units to, as Lam told the Camas Parks Commission in April, “produce a proportionally lower impact fee for smaller housing units,” and prohibit cities from charging impact fees on ADUs that are greater than 50% of the impact fee for the main home on the property. The new fee schedule, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2025, includes a scaled model that will charge far less than what the state considers the “maximum defensible” fees the City would be allowed to charge based on its existing parks system and future facility needs to accommodate a growing population. The city of Camas currently charges a flat parks impact fee of $5,853 for all residential units, no matter the size and does not charge for ADUs or non-residential units. The new impact fees will charge less for smaller residential units up to 1,000 square feet in size and will charge up to $13,549 for new homes that are 2,601 square feet or larger. Lam showed Council members in June how the new impact fee schedule would have impacted the City during the first quarter of 2024, when the City collected $1,012,569 in park impact fees using the flat-fee of $5,853 from a total of 173 residential units, including 24 homes larger than 2,601 square feet, 10 homes between 2,001 and 2,600 square feet, 83 homes between 1,001 and 2,000 square feet and 56 homes under or equal to 1,000 square feet. Had the new impact fee schedule been implemented, developers would have paid less ($4,259) for those 56 housing units 1,000 square feet or smaller and slightly more (7,802) for the 83 homes between 1,001 and 2,000 square feet. The costs for the larger, typically more expensive, homes also would have brought in more money, charging $11,841 for the 10 homes between 2,001 and 2,600 square feet and $13,549 for the 24 homes larger than 2,601 square feet. The new fee schedule also includes fees for ADUs — which the City is likely to cap at 1,000 square feet — scaled to 50% of the principal housing unit’s impact fee, which will cost between $2,129 and $4,259 for an ADU depending on the square footage of the main housing unit. Another new addition will charge non-residential newcomers by the square foot depending on the type of business and the expected impacts on the parks and recreation system, with new industrial developments paying 26 cents per square foot; new retail developments paying 47 cents per square foot; new office developments paying 48 cents per square foot; and new healthcare developments paying 63 cents per square foot. Beginning in January 2026, the City also will adjust the park impact fees to account for inflation. Despite objections by Lewallen and Senescu, the majority of the Camas City Council agreed with the impact fee schedule recommended by the Camas Parks Commission, and noted that the recommended fees are well below the City’s maximum allowable park impact fees, which would have cost developers between $7,470 and $23,766 per housing unit. “The (Parks Commission) has done a lot of work, and I’m in favor of it,” Councilman Tim Hein said. “We have expectations and not only expectations but aspirations to increase what (our parks department) is doing. That (cost) should be borne not only by citizens who live here but by the citizens who will come here.” Councilman John Nohr said that, as a longtime resident of Camas, he agrees that newcomers must pay for the demands new development puts on the City’s various services and systems, and that he doubted the impact fees would have a negative effect on the cost of housing in Camas. “I’m not sure what degree impact fees help drive costs up,” Nohr said Monday. “Houses sell for what the market can bear. ... So, the degree to which impact fees directly drive housing prices up? I don’t necessarily agree with that. I”m in support of the impact fees. They are a way to make sure people who have lived here a long time aren’t overburdened by the cost of new development.” Councilmember John Svilarich added that the impact fees may seem higher now because city officials hesitated in the past to increase the fees or even index them for inflation. “When we delay, stall or put off these charges, when they come due, they really come due,” he said. “I don’t like increasing fees, but it needs to be done. We should not (put this) off another five years.”

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