New law means parkland funds will drop drastically

The amount of parkland dedication fees City Council can collect starting on Jan. 1 will be severely limited, two principal planners for the Parks and Recreation Department told Council at Tuesday’s work session. Robynne Heymans and Scott Grantham explained that PARD is working on changes to the city ordinance as required by a new state law, House Bill 1526.

Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, and Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, sponsored the bill. The law applies to cities with 800,000 residents or more, which includes Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and Houston.

Under the city’s current ordinance, multifamily and hotel/motel developers are required to provide 9.4 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. The new ordinance will require only 0.075 acres to 3 acres per 1,000 residents, as prescribed by the law. Council must adopt the changes by Dec. 1. They were set to hold a public hearing on the ordinance today, but because the Planning Commission postponed consideration of the item, staff is recommending that the hearing be postponed to Nov. 30. That’s the last meeting Council can take action before the state’s deadline.

The law requires the city to designate each area of the city as either suburban, urban or central business district. The local appraisal district would be asked to calculate the land values for each district.

“I took a look last year at what impact this could have, and last year over 88 percent of our land acquisitions came from parkland dedication and another large portion of that remaining 12 percent we acquired with some of the fees from the parkland dedication,” Council Member Ryan Alter told his colleagues. “So as we navigate this, I’m not saying that all is going to go away because the bill does still allow us some acquisition of land or fee-in-lieu, but I think it’s important that we think about how we address the reduced amount of both fee and land we might find … and what we might do to offset that.”

Council Member Alison Alter asked staff to provide exact numbers on money that will be lost. She said, “It’s not so much the money that’s important as the ability to dedicate the land. There are scenarios where we would end up paying them for land … and I think we need to be very careful to watch those scenarios.”

She concluded that the city might end up taking legal action to rectify the situation.

“We really do need to explore the options that we have,” she said. “This is an extreme overreach, in my view. It violates all of the tenets of the national standards for doing parkland dedication. … We need to use every tool in our toolbox.”

She concluded that “we do need to move forward,” but made clear that she will be looking for ways to fight the restrictions of the new law.

The city’s top legislative watchdog, Brie Franco, told Council in May, “Instead of using the correct formula for existing parkland levels of service, parkland dedication would be determined and satisfied by the amount of the maximum fee that can be imposed under the bill. Landowners may request a determination from the city of the required dedication amount and, if the city fails to respond within 30 days, the city may not require a parkland dedication or charge a fee in lieu of dedication.”

The new law also prescribes another change that will impact collection of the fees for multifamily development. Fees are currently collected at the time of site plan or final plat. In the future, developers will not be required to pay the fees until a certificate of occupancy is issued. According to Grantham, that could mean a one- to five-year delay. Fees will not be allowed for development of commercial properties.

In the current ordinance, parkland dedication is capped at 15 percent in the urban core but not capped in the suburban area. In the new ordinance, parkland will be capped at 10 percent citywide.

Over the last few years, Council has devoted numerous discussions to who should pay parkland fees and how much they should be.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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