BC 2008 04 07 Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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April 7, 2008 (Work Session) Page 778 mitigation fee for the schools since he thought the infrastructure is there to support this project and asked if the mitigation payment could be waived. John Day, County Manager, asked the County Attorney to respond. Richard Koch, County Attorney, reported there is no provision in the ordinance to waive the application of the fee because it applies to all the properties that are being developed within the County or the municipalities and are governed by state statute and local ordinance. He stated the Board does not have the ability to just waive the fee. He reported there could be some flexibility with how the fee is applied, but the purpose of the ordinance and the fee is to provide some concurrency between the effects of the project being proposed and students generated by that number of units that would need to have a place to go to school in that district. He stated the County has the requirement to provide a place for these students to go to school, but there is not presently capacity to do so. He said the purpose of the ordinance is to try to provide a mechanism for the County to provide the seats that are required when the project would come on line. He further reported the ordinance and fee is being applied to the Mardan X project the same way it is been applied to all other projects. Mark McCormick stated he had received a statement that there is adequate capacity for the project. Susie Morris, Planning and Zoning Manager, stated when the calculations were completed, there was capacity and that the Board has historically requested the voluntary mitigation payment as well. She also responded to questions on how the capacity and the impact of the development at each school level were calculated. Mr. Day clarified that the number "11" as shown on the Reservation of Capacity and Capacity Schedule does not mean that is the available capacity. He said it is the level of capacity that remains after the children associated with the development are accounted for. After responding to questions related to the use of previously approved homes in the calculations, Ms. Morris said the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance states what must be used to determine current available capacity and planned capacity at the two and five year levels. She said once the current available capacity is determined, any planned capacity for the two- year mark as well as any for the five-year mark is added. With regard to the Mardan X project, she said there is current capacity and planned capacity at two and five year levels. Mr. Day stated this was the first case where there is available capacity. He said the developer has a choice to proceed without reserving capacity and take the risk that when the development opens, there still is capacity available. He explained this process is similar to reserving sewer capacity; if you pay the fee and reserve capacity, no one can take it away from you. However, he said if the fee is not paid and capacity no longer exists when a certificate of occupancy is requested, then there is a problem. Mark McCormick stated he was hoping to get the Reservation of Capacity Certificate approved at building permitting and a brief discussion ensued. Chairman White suggested the Board take a short recess in order for the County Attorney and Ms. Morris to confer. Recess of Meeting The Board took a short recess at 5:13 p.m. Chairman White reconvened the meeting at 5:33 p.m. - Mardan X. LLC Richard Koch, County Attorney reported the calculations shown in the Reservation of Capacity memorandum were done by the formula in the Ordinance. He said the formula includes the existing capacity and committed capacity, which are projects that are already in the pipeline. He explained that on the face of it there is capacity at each level in the schools; however, when you add the student generation rate for this project based on the number of units the project is going to have, there will not be capacity at the elementary school level. He said the student generation rates are multiplied by the number of units and compared to the formulas to determine if there is