03/06/1995 Park Board Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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So now we have defined a parks system for the subject community. This park plan sets forth the level and type of service that the community plans to provide for its residents. It includes a description and proposed locations for all of the various types of parks to be provided and defines the areas to be served by them. By reviewing the comprehensive plan, one can determine the number of users that will ultimately reside within the various service areas. With this information one can determine how much land must be purchased and where it is needed and determine how many people it will serve. Basically, a fair dedication requirement would be one that is reasonably related to these considerations. It is important to remember that modern community park systems include both neighborhood parks and community scale parks. They also include trail systems, natural preserves, and other special use facilities. Logically, if a community has decided to provide community scale parks, natural preserves, interpretive areas and special use facilities, it will have determined that it is the broad community's interest to do so. As long as the cost of providing these facilities is not unfairly concentrated on new developers or other minority interests, there is no reason why these costs could not also be included in a dedication requirement. Where this set of issues becomes problematic is when communities go too far in assigning the burden to one set of beneficiaries. Many local politicians find it easier to pay for the cost of fancy park facilities by placing the burden on developers and "newcomers to our community". This approach provides the opportunity to have our cake (build a fancy park system) and eat it too (at someone else's expense) and avoid the flack of levying taxes to provide this level of services. It is also important to remember that there are intangible benefits to parks and open spaces and other factors that make it virtually impossible to either justify or challenge a park dedication standard with actuarial accuracy. No one knows exactly how many people are going to live in an area, or of that population, how many will use the parks. Use patterns change over time as do the nature of the facilities themselves. What we can do is make reasoned judgements based on planned densities and review existing local use experiences and national standards to estimate users and service areas. ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE Figure 2 is a very simplified illustration of a hypothetical community. You will note that this example shows a portion of the community in a regional park and also shows a community scale park, some trail corridors, and a system of neighborhood parks. This illustration shows the service areas of all of these various parks and is intended to assist you in understanding how one might approach the analysis to complete the rough proportionality test. Community trails are generally facilities that benefit the entire community. Therefore, if the community seeks to have developers contribute to a trail fund. the amount of the contribution n