03/06/1995 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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,.WN THE ROLE OF THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND ADOPTED PARKS AND OPEN SPACE PLAN There is nothing about any of the takings cases noted above that limits the choices that communities can make about the types of park systems they provide for their residents and visitors. The level and nature of service that the community provides is still solidly within the limits of its authority to decide. The Dolan case, and its predecessors, speak to the reasonableness and fairness of the methods of distributing the costs of providing these facilities. Prior to the Dolan case and the coining of the "rough proportionality" phrase, we used to talk about these matters in terms of the "reasonable relationship" test. Quite candidly, from a practical perspective,I am not certain that there is a great deal of difference between these two findings. I tend to view the Dolan case as a clarification of what the Court said in 1987 in the other takings cases. Rather than simply leaving "reasonably related" to be defined on a case-by -case basis, they said that the dedication or exaction has to be "roughly proportionate"to the demand caused by the development. Clearly the terms roughly proportionate starts to suggest an analysis that considers the proposed development in the context of an entire system. The best tool available to local units of government to understand all of the systems that comprise their community is the comprehensive plan. Within the comprehensive plan, the parks element or plan defines the system of facilities and services that the community plans to provide to its residents. Figure 1 is a hypothetical Park Classification table that summarizes all of the components of a local park system. Individual community plans may be similar or very different from this example,but it works for illustrative purposes. The summary of the various parks within the system establishes several key factors that are relevant to this discussion. First, it identifies the types of uses and activities that take place in the park. This identifies who is typically served by this facility. It also identifies the service area for the park, the size of the site, and other spatial and natural requirements for the facility. This establishes how much and what type of land is needed, which relates to the cost of providing the facility to the entire user group. Finally, it describes in general terms where these facilities need to be located in order to function properly. This is very important in making the types of specific site selection and other important design decisions that must be made. What is missing from this table is information about how many potential users either currently live or will someday live within the various service area boundaries. The comprehensive plan will identify the proposed land uses and densities within these service areas. It will also include information about the timing of this development and other relevant information. 2