Clark County Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the public hearing.

Order for Thursday, July 16th, 2026.

My name is Carl Johnson and I'm the Chairman of the Clark County Planning Commission. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and analyze comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, and other land related issues. We follow a public process, including holding hearings, during which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information. In legislative matters, the role of the Planning Commission is advisory. The County Council will hold separate hearings, consider our recommendation, and then they will make a final determination. The Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing tonight and take testimony. All public comments received before tonight's hearing have been sent to the PC members and entered into the public record. County staff will first present, then the Planning Commission can ask questions. Next, we will invite the applicants to speak, if there is one. Then members of the public who wish to provide testimony. When we get to the public comment portion of our agenda, we'll provide more information on how to participate both virtually and in person. However, if you're in person tonight and wish to provide comment on the hearing agenda item, please sign up via the sign-up sheets in the back of the room. During public testimony, you will be given three minutes to speak and marks should be directed to the Planning Commission only. Please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided. At the conclusion of the public testimony, staff and the applicant may respond to the comments and the public portion of the hearing will then be closed. The Planning Commission will then deliberate and make recommendations to the County Council. For both virtual and in-person members of the Planning Commission and staff, Please ensure that your microphones are muted unless you are speaking. Planning commissioners, when you make a motion and or second a motion, please state your name for the court reporter. Conflicts of interest. Do any of the planning commissioners have any conflicts of interest relating to the night's hearing? Hearing none, we will proceed with a roll call and introduction of any guests. Jeff, can I get a roll call, please?

Ryan Halbert. Mark Bergfold?

Here.

Kyle Fadness? Here. Ron Barka? Here. Jack Caron? Here. Oesha Waduk-Montgomery?

Here.

Carl Johnson? Here.

Next, we'll need approval for the agenda for July 16th, 2026. Can we get a motion and a second, please?

Commissioner Halbert, I recommend that we approve the agenda for July 16th, 2026.

Commissioner Bergfold, I'll second that.

We have a motion. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please? Brian Halbert.

Aye.

Mark Bergfold.

Aye. Kyle Fadness.

Aye.

Ron Barka. Aye. Jack Caroon. Aye. Oeshula Duke-Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson. Aye. 7-0.

Motion passes. We're looking for approval for minutes for May 21, 2026. Can I get a motion and a second, please?

Commissioner Fadness, I move to approve the minutes for July 16.

Check that. That's May 21.

Sorry about that. Yep, May 21.

Commissioner Barca, I second the motion.

We have a motion and a second. Can we please get a roll call, Jeff?

Ryan Halbert. Aye. Mark Bergfold. Aye. Kyle Fadness. Aye. Ron Barka? Aye. Jack Caron? Aye. Alicia LaDuke-Montgomery?

Aye.

Paul Johnson? Aye. 7-0.

Motion passes. At this time, this is communications from the public, and these are items that are not listed on the agenda. Is there anybody at this time, either online or in the room, that would like to comment on something that is not on the agenda?

Should I provide online instructions?

Yeah, go ahead with that, Jeff.

For attendees using their computer or WebEx application, if you would like to speak, please use the raise hand icon. For attendees using the telephone audio only option, press star three on your phone's number panel to raise your hand. For those in person that would like to provide comment, please raise your hand. Once acknowledged, you may come to the microphone towards the front of the room. Public comments are limited to three minutes per person in order to accommodate all speakers. Again, this portion of tonight's hearing is only for items not listed on tonight's agenda. We will begin with those in the hearing room who would like to make a general comment. Please raise your hand and the chair will call on you to come up to the front to the microphone. Please provide your first and last name for the court reporter. No raised hands. We will now call on those people on WebEx or the phone that have raised their hand. For those people using the telephone option, press star six on your phone's number panel to unmute yourself when it is your turn to speak. No one raising their hand online either.

Okay. With that said, we'll now proceed to the public hearing section reminders to the public. If you're providing public testimony in person, Please sign up on the sheet in the back of the room. If you're joining remotely, once again, we will provide you instructions at the appropriate time. So first up is CEPZ202500004, Evergreen School District, Capital Facilities Plan. Amy Wooten is our presenter. Amy? Amy? YES.

GOOD EVENING, PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS. FOR THE RECORD, MY NAME IS OLIVER, COMMUNITY PLANNING DIRECTOR. BEFORE STAFF GIVES THE PRESENTATION, I WOULD LIKE TO JUST MAKE A VERY QUICK COMMENT. WE HAVE FIVE SCHOOL DISTRICTS TONIGHT AND ALSO I BELIEVE I believe four fire districts capital facilities plan and the attendant impact fees associated with each of the capital facilities plan. There are some school district that is not before you or are not submitting. Their capital facilities plan was reviewed, I believe, two years ago or so. And their six-year capital facilities plan is still good. So we are going to be focusing on these five. And your recommendation will be forwarded on to the council. They may hold a hearing to consider your recommendation. prior to the adoption of the plan or this will all be included in the package for their final hearing on the 2025 to 2045 periodic plan update. With me this evening is Ms. Rebecca Ward-Palmerton, our legal counsel. And we have Jose Alvarez, land use program manager and staff. So I'll turn it over to Amy Woodson, who will be giving the presentation. But we are here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Oh, our monitors, Jeff, aren't working up here. Okay, all right, thank you. Okay, Amy, go ahead.

Good evening, council members.

One second, Amy, hold on. There we go. We got them here. Go ahead, Amy, we can start.

Good evening, commission members. For the record, my name is Amy Wooten with Community Planning. I'm joined by Oliver Orjako, as he's already introduced himself this evening, and we will be presenting the school district capital facilities plans and impact fee updates for you this evening. Next screen. Thank you. Each school district's proposal is considered a separate docket item that requires separate deliberation and voting. We plan to follow the order on the agenda as listed on this slide. For each hearing, staff's presentation will focus on whether or not the school's CFP meets the criteria outlined in county code. Staff will defer background information about what is happening in each school district with regards to student enrollment, facility needs, and financing mechanism decisions to the school districts. So after staff's presentation, the school district will have an opportunity to summarize what is going on in their district. We'll be able to answer specific questions you have, such as some items you may have raised during the recent work sessions. So staff will focus on codified criteria. The school districts can provide more context about what is happening within each district. Next slide. Next, oh great, thank you Jeff. This table is being provided for reference. You saw it at the work session last week, it hasn't changed. It summarizes the existing and proposed impact fee amounts for each of the school districts with separate amounts for single family and multi-family dwellings. You may notice a wide range in the proposed fee amounts on this slide. Each district has different facility needs over the next six years, and each district's capital facilities plan provides the background information and context behind these numbers. Next slide. This slide is being shared for reference only so that you can see impact fee amounts for all districts in the county. We will not be discussing these school district CFPs today as they are not being updated. Next slide, please. So we're starting our hearings tonight with Evergreen School District. It's a docket CPZ 2025-0004 and is pertaining to Evergreen School District Capital Facilities Plan 2026 through 2022. The Evergreen School District Board of Directors has modified the capital facilities plan. This district is requesting that Clark County formally adopt the plan by reference in the 20-year Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan and collect the recommended school impact fees. The Growth Management Act enables school districts to develop capital facilities plans and impact fee programs for new residential developments in order to offset the impacts of growth on school facilities. It further requires these plans and programs be reviewed and approved as part of the county and city comprehensive plans in which the school district is based. The minimum requirements of a school district's capital facilities plan are defined in the Growth Management Act and Clark County Code. A school district requesting impact fees shall submit to the county and update at least every four years a capital facilities plan adopted by the school board and consisting of the following elements. A standards of service description, an inventory of existing facilities, a forecast of future needs, proposed locations and capacities of expanded or new facilities, a six-year financing plans, and application of the impact fee formula set out in Clark County Code section 40.620.040. As a reminder, the financing plan for school capital facilities plans typically includes multiple funding sources. Depending on district eligibility, districts pay for a portion of the cost of capital facilities with funds provided by the state of Washington through the Common School Construction Fund. The remaining capital expenses must be raised locally, which is typically done through the passage of bond levies, which raise the property taxes of all residential property owners within a particular district and or impact fees which only apply to new residential construction within the district. Next slide. There are two criterion staff use to evaluate a school district CFP. Criterion A is that in updating capital facilities plans, policies and procedures, the county must determine that these updates are consistent with applicable provisions of the GMA and WAC and policies and implementation measures of the comprehensive plan and in conformance with purposes and intent of the applicable inter-jurisdictional agreements. The staff report that you received in your packet walks through the details of the applicable provisions of this criterion. In summary, staff found the CFP includes the required elements and information as mandated in GMA and the Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Staff found the future needs outlined in the CFP are consistent with GMA and the 2025 to 2045 Comprehensive Plan. Staff found the financing plan outlined in the CFP meets Criterion A because the financing plan has declared that, based on enrollment forecast, existing capacity, and the district's educational standards, there is no present need for new capital facilities. Therefore, the plan proposes impact fees of zero dollars. Staff found the financing plan is consistent with GMA, impact fee related state statutes, and the 2025 to 2045 Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Based on these findings, staff concluded the proposal meets Criterion A. Next slide. Criterion B relates to reviewing school CFPs in accordance with the provisions of Clark County Code, Section 40.620.030B, where the code specifies the planning commissions shall consider whether the district's forecasting system for enrollment projections appears reasonable and reliable, whether the anticipated level of state and voter approved funding appears reasonable and historically reliable, whether the standard of service set by the district is reasonably consistent with standards set by other school districts in communities of similar socioeconomic profile, and whether the district appropriately applied the formula set out in Clark County Code 40.620.040. The staff report walks through the findings on each of these items and found that the district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable based on the approach outlined in the CFP. Staff found the standard of service for the district is consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts. Staff also found that the CFP proposes no new impact fees and therefore the application of the impact fee formula in Clark County Code 40.620.040 is not applicable. Based on these findings, staff concluded the proposal met Criterion B. Next slide, please. The Evergreen School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on June 10th of 2025. A copy of the updated plan with impact fee calculations and resolution number 25-06 were provided in your hearing materials as exhibits B and A respectively. The School District Board of Directors recommends that Clark County formally adopt the plan and collect impact fees as indicated on the screen, which is $0 for single family, $0 for multifamily, and $0 for ADUs. Public comments were received on this application. copies of which were in your hearing materials. And as outlined in the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal meeting all criteria. That concludes staff presentation on this request. And we're available to answer questions. And we also have representatives from the school district if you have questions for them.

OK, questions for staff. On evergreen, we're just just evergreen along.

This is Commissioner Barker. Going through the presentation, I noticed that they are very similar from school district to school district on the presentation. I didn't see any of the presentations for any of the school districts that you disagreed with or denied that they should go forward. I'm wondering why we're going through them individually in this fashion as opposed to just working out the aspect of whether we agree or disagree with the proposals. Is there a particular reason? Because I guess, Amy, it's a very good presentation, but I believe they're all going to be very, very similar. And I don't know that we need to go through that minutiae with it unless there's something that you believe we should be deliberating specifically on. So I guess that's my question for you. Is there... Is there something specific in this presentation that you desire us to deliberate specifically, individually, as opposed to the cluster that we have been presented?

This is Oliver Ojiako. The presentation will be similar, as you observed, Commissioner Raumberger. I think you will see that there is variation are based on the needs of each of the school district and changes as a result to the applicable impact fees. So it will be proper and appropriate to review them individually. make a motion to accept what each of the school district board recommended. If you disagree, you can make a different findings and we will take that on to the council. That's why we are looking at them individually because each one school district is different and you could see the relative impact OF EACH OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND THEIR NEEDS. I DON'T WANT TO JUMP, BUT YOU CAN SEE HOCKINSON, FOR EXAMPLE, THE EXISTING FEE AND WHAT THEY'RE PROPOSING AND WHAT THE CHANGE IS. And similarly, the center. So each one, you will see a difference based on the adopted capital facilities plan and their need. The reason I'm raising that is because each district is different. And the ability to pass bond or levy also impacts how they look at their capital facilities and need. And if you decide to look at them all and recommended approval, we will accept that, but I think it will be PREFERABLE THAT YOU LOOK AT THEM INDIVIDUALLY. ASK QUESTION, WE HAVE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HERE, SO THERE MAY BE PARTICULAR QUESTION TO A PARTICULAR DISTRICT ON WHY THE DIFFERENCE IN THE ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT FEES. THEY'RE USING THE SAME FORMULA, IT'S NOT DIFFERENT, BUT THEY'RE ARRIVING AT DIFFERENT CONCLUSIONS BASED ON whether they have the capacity in the case of evergreen for example i'm not speaking for them and i believe that they and bremer will but i know that they have been successful in passing bond and levies they've used that to modernize almost majority of their school. Therefore, they have the capacity. So that's the reason why they're not asking for increase in their impact fee using the formula when the need is in there. So because they have the capacity to accommodate any future growth. You will recall, Commissioner, from back a few years ago, each of the school district where it was like a mad rush for portables. Some schools have been very successful in passing bond, and we have still some state funding issues when it comes to education. I don't want to belabor the effort, but it's on you how you want to proceed. Staff prefer that you look at them individually because there are differences among the school districts.

Okay, I understand your explanation. Without the thought process that the staff recommendation is no different for each one regardless of how much they're asking for or not asking for obviously the formula as applied do not raise any red flags for you and so i guess i would put it to the commissioners at least in the context of evergreen and washougal where there's zero proposed fees I'd like to make a motion that we just go ahead and take those off of the docket and be done with them. And then we can look at the other individual ones as the desire of the council or commission is.

So when you say take them off the docket, you mean vote for them?

Vote for them and be done with it. Yeah.

We have a motion. It says voting for Evergreen, which has a zero proposed fee and Washougal. Is that correct?

That's correct.

uh both uh single and multiple family so this is uh jose alvarez community planning as it's a public hearing you need to have public testimony so you have to go through that for each each one individually that's why we set them up this way

Okay, so we'll start again. Is there any more questions for Evergreen? Okay, with that said, we're now public comment. Okay, let me get this thing under control here. So now that we're done with staff questions, bring it back to us and now I'll go to public comment. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Sorry to jump again. Leanne Bremer, representing all the school districts this evening. I might suggest that the way I saw it working, I do think you need to have a decision on each plan individually. I don't really think you need the same presentation every four or five times. So you can open up each hearing item individually. maybe point out the impact fee requests because they are different for each one except for evergreen and in washougal and then take public testimony and then vote it might speed it up a little bit but i don't i don't think because the staff did such a thorough job in their staff report going through each of the criteria for the cfp that they need to repeat that every time that's a suggestion so thank you so on and and and I don't want to repeat myself five times either. So what I will say for Evergreen School District is similarly what I would say for the other school districts is that we're following the format of previous capital facilities plans that the county has adopted since the mid-90s and we're applying the same formula and So it's the same information but updated. And staff has confirmed that we meet the criteria and I agree. For Evergreen specifically, as been said, they have capacity in their current schools. They've done a professional enrollment forecast and found that their existing capacity can handle growth in the next six years. So that is why they cannot collect impact fees. We cannot demonstrate that new growth and development will have an impact on school facilities. So that is why their fee will be going to zero. And the other thing I wanted to say is there was a question at the work session about the ratio between public funding and impact fees I provided that information into the record hope you all saw that and if you have questions on that I'm happy to answer and then we also answered a question that came about through public comment on whether why aren't the other school districts updating their plans during this year and we address that to say that we're really The four year update is based on when the county adopted the plan, not when the school districts adopted or their board made a recommendation because the board's recommendation on their CFP is just that, just like your recommendation to the council. It's not a final action. It can change between the time the board makes a recommendation and the county adopts the plan. So we consider the county's adoption the date they become effective. And when impact fees are adjusted by code, so that is the date we measure four years from. And so for the other districts not before you tonight, they're coming back to you next year. In fact, all the districts have to come back to you next year because there has been a change in state law that requires impact fees to be scaled to the size of the dwelling. And the county has to do that for their impact fees. We have to do that for our impact fees. So we're coming back next year anyway.

Liam, will you do me a favor? I'm going to consider that you are the applicant's presenter, which just fixes it here. Would you just stay up here? Oh, sure. And then what I'll do right now is I'm going to now actually open the hearing for public testimony. Jeff, will you go through this spiel here? And then I will address if there's anybody else online or here. Officially now, we've asked questions. Sorry for the confusion.

Jeff?

Please note, to be a party of record, you must submit written testimony before, during, or prior to the close of tonight's hearing, or provide oral testimony at the public hearing, or request in writing to be a party of record. If written comments were received prior to July 16, 2026, they were submitted to the Planning Commission members and posted on the Planning Commission website. Tonight's hearing is being transcribed by a court reporter, so please spell your first and last name and speak slowly. Public comment time is limited to three minutes. We will now begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone. Please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your telephone to let us know you would like to provide comment. For those using the telephone options, press star six on your phone to unmute yourself when it is your turn to speak. Anybody? OK, we will now begin with participants in the hearing room. Was anybody signed up to speak?

Sorry, Leon was the only one.

That concludes public comment.

Okay, so hearing no public comment, either online or in the room, I'll bring it back now to the commissioners. And we're talking about Evergreen, and I think how we'll shrink these for you is we'll try to just, that first part of these, you know, that's the same, they're redundant. But if you get to the very end of these, the meat of it, We'll ask that information be put forward on each one of these since we have to go through each one of them. Hopefully you don't have to go through that first part unless somebody officially tells me we have to go through that first part. So if we can just take the proposal, the report findings, and the staff recommendation on each of those, I think that'll expedite this. Is that good? And then Leanne, if we have any questions, because I do have some questions on like the differences and stuff like that. So staff, is there any response to the testimony that I've heard? Any questions on Evergreen? Applicant, there's none. Okay, so with that said, back to us for deliberations. Any deliberations? Any talk between us? Okay, with Evergreen, considering that, I'll take a motion.

This is Ron Barker. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Evergreen proposed impact fees as recommended by staff. Commissioner Halbert? Aye.

Second that motion.

We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can you give us a roll call, please?

Brian Halbert?

Aye. Mark Bergfold?

Aye.

Kyle Fadnas? Aye. Ron Barca? Aye. Jack Harun? Aye. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery?

Aye.

Carl Johnson? Aye. 7-0.

Motion passes. Up next is CPZ-2025-0005. Hawkinson School District Capital Facilities Plan. Amy, I'm looking at page 12, hopefully that's where we're at.

Okay, if you could forward the slides for me. We're talking about Hawkinson. And how about if we go to We're considering Hawkinson CFP against the same criteria that we discussed for Evergreen. They did meet criterion A, as we found that their future needs and facility locations would be consistent. Switch to the next slide, please, Jeff. Criterion B was found to meet, be met with this CFP. The standard of service for the district is consistent with standard of service for other Clark County School District. And it provided district enrollment projections. and facility information that staff found met criterion B. They proposed impact fees. based on those findings that staff found met all criteria. And they are requesting $15,174.54 for single family dwellings and $1,720.12 for multifamily dwellings. Public comment, the same public comment letter was submitted for this. application that was submitted for evergreen received the same response from the district's representative and so our recommendation based on the cfp that we received is approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees is there any question for staff on hawkinson school district

This is Commissioner Horan. At our work session, I had asked specifically that you guys could come and show us the formula and calculation and the math behind that and how that works. So I had a better understanding of how that number is derived. So one of the, the letter that we got from Lan, which is great, it seems, yeah, so I'm just trying to understand how that works and if it's, when we talk about proportionality, I would like to understand, take it, like if you have, 1,000 students, 100 of those students are attributed to new growth. You build a new facility for the 1,000 students. The proportionality is set based on the new growth, the 100 students, and then what percentage of that is supposed to be covered by impact fees. Because it wouldn't be established on the entire project. It was just replacement. So I guess my, is that correct? Okay.

Is that working? Okay. Yes. So again, Leanne Bremmer representing Hawkinson School District. And I think I can answer your question. In particular, this is a good example to walk through the formula. And I don't know if we have the formula itself on a slide, but I'll do my best to do it without that in front of us. So the Hawkinson School District is in dire need of a new elementary school. They're basically at capacity at their existing school. So their plan plans for a brand new elementary school. And these days, new schools cost a lot of money, and in this case, $50 million. So what we do to make sure that the impact fee is that new development is paying a proportionate share of that $50 million school, is we determine how much of that capacity of that new school, which is 500 students, is attributable to the growth we expect over the next six years. And in this case, it's 384 students is the growth that we'll expect in that six-year period. So we divide that number into the $50 million cost to come up with a a cost of the facility attributable to growth. So that's your top line number. And then we divide that by the number of students attributable to growth to come up with a cost per student number. And then the formula just takes you right through that. And then we subtract from that number money that we'll get from the state match and any taxes that will go towards the new school to come up with the fee that's charged to new development. So we do start with a number, a cost that is scaled to what we need to serve the new growth, not just everybody who will be going to that school.

So just for my understanding here, so a $50 million school. Yeah. I know it's like turning into Portableville a little bit out there. Yeah. And how many students will that?

It'll be 500 students will fit in that school. So 500 students. 384 from growth. OK. And then so it's about a $39 million school for the growth portion.

OK.

And that's what gets plugged into the formula, not the full 50 million.

Right. So it's, what is that, about $100,000 per student? Yeah. Is that right?

I have it right here.

If you have $50 million, it's $500,000.

Yeah, good math. $101,000 per student, and then you subtract out.

Okay. And then, so you times that by the $365,000, right? So $36 million attributed to new growth. And then that proportion of that $36 million, what is the percentage of, that you're looking to capture so it's at set so it's at if it's a 17 000 impact fee right something like that what is that um or 16 000 so so we're capturing of that hundred thousand just for simple i know we can you know get minutiae so we're capturing about 15 of that impact

in that per student yes and then the the other thing okay because it was a little different like because what you had proposed like on your letter was different it was like four percent i didn't do it quite that way i i took the full cost of the facility and then how much was going to be financed with public funding and how much with impact fees but just a slight variation on your um okay what i put in i'm a simpleton no but but you have it right so it's it really is a hundred thousand dollars per student to build that school to build a school yeah yeah and and but we're not charging a hundred thousand dollar impact fee because we can't uh and so it's there and the other thing i forgot to mention is there's a big part of the formula is the student generation rate so it's not It's not four students per house. It's based on data.

Some houses will have kids, some won't. That's right.

So there's an average student generation factor. And that really brings down that $100,000 number when you apply that.

And that's the formula that's basically applied across the board. It hasn't changed in three years. That helps me a tremendous amount. Thank you. Great explanation.

Any other questions for staff?

This is Commissioner Bergfeld. Looking at that, I would have expected single family to be a lower rate than multifamily, especially with an elementary school. because you have young families in apartments that can't afford the house, so they've got more kids. So this appears to be, in my gut feel, backwards, but I'm sure there's a formula reason for that.

Can you explain that? Yes. Well, and you will find that when we get to Woodland, that's exactly what you see, because according to the demographics there, there are more students generated out of the multifamily units. Hawkinson is a little hard because they don't have that many apartments. and so um that's why you see uh i i think if you saw more apartment you'd see a higher fee but it's just it's just the math that's just the way it works out because they have so few units okay thank you this is commissioner fatness um land could you speak on how the uh

estimated construction costs for the school was calculated because, you know, looking at some of the other capital facilities plans, you see with the center, they're about 25 million for 450 students, I believe. And Woodland was about 32 million for 400 students. So it seems like the estimated cost for the school is

you know quite a bit higher than the other districts yeah that's a good question we we rely on the district uh facilities folks to to come up with those numbers and for Hawkinson fortunately uh or unfortunately they had to calculate that amount for their new school recently for a bond measure that did not pass so these this was just based on their their planned school and how much it costs. So it was just done internally at the school district is how they come up with those costs. And I expect there's, I mean, not every elementary school is the same. And so there's just, there's going to be variations, but I understand your question because it looks like a big difference between them.

Okay. Thank you.

So just to, this commissioner around, just to clarify that, because I'd missed that. on the cost differences so we're looking at anywhere between like a hundred the hawkinson is proposing almost between 70 and 100 more than the other school districts for the same capacity for kids when they have the exact same building cost exact same requirements as as any of the other school districts because that's pretty dramatic and something we certainly need to look at

Well, if we look at Woodland, they're building a 400 capacity school for $28.8 million. So it's a 100 student difference there. Yeah, I know.

I'm a construction guy.

I know.

It seems, yeah. So I would, I mean, well, one of my recommendations to the council is like that we get some clarity on numbers.

I think that's an excellent question. So definitely before we go to council, we'll pin that down. Yeah.

Any other questions for staff or Leigh Ann? Okay, with that said, I'll bring it back to us. Any discussion?

Commissioner Halbert, hey, Jack, I'd maybe throw out that land is different in jurisdictions. The infrastructure is substantially different in every jurisdiction. Their ability to connect to public sewer may be a mile away, whereas woodland is just around the corner. So you need to start looking at the infrastructure costs, even though the building costs may be the same, but land and utilities are substantially different.

Commissioner Johnson, I do think it would be interesting. You said they're coming back in a year. Is that correct?

Yes. Wait for all the districts collecting impact fees. They have to recalculate them.

So that would be a great question to ask them is that yes, they're going to be differences in costs, obviously, but, um, Where's that coming? Because that really was my question, too. Like, we're bringing this data in, and we're assuming that good faith that that is the correct data. But we do have this thing here that I did the same thing, and I went like that. So my question was, next time this comes before us, maybe that would be a little bit clearer. Because I think you've explained this to me about five times in the past years. And I still go, well, I just learned something. So I don't know. That's just something off the top. Any other comments or discussion online? If not, I would take a motion and a second on Hawkinson School District, if that's appropriate.

This is Commissioner Halbert. I'm making a recommendation that we approve CPZ2025-00005, Hawkinson School District, as presented.

This is Commissioner Burke, though, and I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please? Brian Halbert.

Aye. Mark Bergfold. Aye. Kyle Fadnas.

Nay.

Ron Barca. Aye. Jack Caron. No. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson.

Aye.

5-2.

Motion passes. With that said, we'll now move on to, I believe it's the center. Same thing if we could, I'm just looking at my page here on your bill. Quickly as we can get to page 16. Okay. Which gets us to the meat and potatoes of the-

OK, so for folks that we might have online, right now we have on the slide the location of Le Center School District is CPZ 2025-0006. We are using the same criteria, A and B, to evaluate the CFPs and the associated impact fees. The staff report found future needs and facility locations outlined in the CFP to be consistent with GMA. And the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive plan, we found the financing plan outlined in the CFP is made up of bond proceeds and impact fees. We found the financing plan to be consistent with GMA. Okay. Impact fee related state statutes and the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive growth management plan. So we concluded it meets criterion A. And if we could move forward to slide 15, please. Staff found that district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable based on the approach outlined in the CFP. We found the standard of service for the district to be consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts and found the district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County code. So based on these findings, we found that the proposal met Criterion B. Next slide, please. The Le Center School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on October 6 of 2025. We provided copies of the plans and the board special meeting minutes for your evidence. They are suggesting $7,536 for single family dwellings and $3,045.74 for multifamily dwellings. We received a public comment letter that we received on the other proposals and a response from the school district's representative. And we are recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and impact fee based on consistency with all criteria. That concludes staff's presentation on this request.

OK, questions for staff or? Yeah. I do have one quick thing. So we talked about this a long time ago, that basically with impact fees and property taxes is the cost of the school. And aren't we just doing this, that if there's more impact fees, would be less because the cost of the school is going to stay the same right so it's not like i just want to make sure because i think that was when i had my big aha moment last time wait a minute what we're doing is we're we're saying impact fees are going to be more which would make the property tax on that specific building less is that correct yes they would size the bond and levy to um what they they need to make up after uh forecasted impact fees Yeah, it's going to be the debt. It's going to be the debt. But it's just where we're getting it from. Yeah, I just thought that was a clarifying point when I saw it last time. No questions from fellows offline there or online?

this is commissioner fatness i just want to ask a quick question um leon i noticed that the calculated single family fee on this one was about 15 000 and the proposed is is half could you speak on um the decision there are you on the center maybe that's getting a little too far into into the weeds but

I had forgotten about that. Thanks for pointing that out. Each school board looks at these fees and they give a lot of thought and whether they want to go up that high or not and they're cognizant of the impact of these fees on the price of housing, and this particular school board was not comfortable going to the maximum that the formula yielded, so it was a policy decision to recommend less.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, just trying to understand kind of the balance there where, you know, Carl says, or pointed out that, since this one's lower, I'm assuming then that amount gets made up on on property taxes on existing properties and new properties then correct that that's right and that's the balance that the school board has to wrestle with honestly good question okay thank you any other questions or comments bringing it back to us or discussion

With that said, I would take a motion and a second, if appropriate, for La Center School District.

This is Commissioner Fadness. I move to approve the recommended impact fee for La Center School District.

This is Commissioner Bernfield. I'll second that.

Jeff, we have a motion and a second to approve the center school district capital facilities plan for 2026 to 2032. Can I get a roll call, please?

Chair, we do need to give an opportunity for public comment. Sorry.

I am. Is there anybody out there?

Is there anybody out there? I'll give an opportunity for- Sorry about that. Thank you. So we'll begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone. Please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your phone to let us know if you would like to provide a comment. For those using a telephone option, please press star six to unmute yourself when it's your turn to speak. Nobody online. And you said there's nobody who signed up in the hearing room? Okay. So that concludes public comment for this item. All right. And you said that- Thank you.

We have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call? All right. Brian Halbert?

Aye. Mark Bergfold? Aye. Kyle Fadness?

Aye.

Ron Barca? Aye. Jack Caron? Aye. Alicia Montgomery?

Aye.

Carl Johnson? Aye. 7-0.

Motion passes. Moving on to our next school, which will be Washougal. Staff.

Thank you. I will open the hearing for CPZ 2025-0007, the Washougal School District Capital Facilities Plan for 2022 to 2027. As discussed prior, the two criterion are A and B. Staff found that this CPZ FP included all required CFP elements and information as adopted in the GMA and Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Staff found the future needs and facility locations outlined in the CFP to be consistent with GMA and the 2025-2045 Comprehensive Plan. Staff found financing plan outlined in the CFP meets criterion A because the financing plan has declared that Based on enrollment forecast, existing capacity in the district's educational standards, there is no present need for new capital facilities. Therefore, the plan proposes impact fees of $0. Staff found the financing plan to be consistent with GMA impact fee related state statutes and the GMA. And based on these findings concluded, it meets criterion A. We need slide 19, please. Criterion B relates to standard of service. Staff found that the standard of service for the district is consistent with the standard of service for other Clark County school districts. Staff found the school district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County code. And based on these findings, found the proposal to meet criterion B. Next slide, please. The Washougal School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan June 10th of 2025. You have a copy of that plan and the adopting board minutes in your hearing packet. They are recommending $0 impact fees for single family dwellings and $0 for multi-family dwellings. The same public comment letter was submitted And as outlined in the staff report, we are recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal being consistent with all criteria. That concludes my presentation on this report.

Washougal care. Are there any questions for staff on Washougal School District Capital Facilities Plan?

Just kind of out of curiosity, did they recently build out capacity or are they just not growing and that they haven't developed any schools?

Yeah, this is a unique one and I wanted to speak to it. They have capacity. They haven't recently built anything that created capacity. When we were before you three years ago, IT IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME PLAN BUT WE ARE UPDATING IT, THE SCHOOL BOARD DECIDED TO UPDATE IT THIS YEAR EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T REALLY HAVE TO AND YOU WILL NOTE IT IS FOR THE SAME TIME PERIOD, 2022 TO 2027 SO THEY ARE COMING BACK NEXT YEAR TOO. THEY WANTED TO UPDATE IT THIS YEAR BECAUSE THERE WAS A REFERENCE TO A specific school site that they were going to purchase in the plan and they needed to correct that because they are not purchasing that property. They still need property eventually for new schools. So there's a line item in the plan that anticipates that they'll at some point purchase more property. We're not identifying it by site or address. So that was a correction. And it was also important to the school board that they include a section in their plan about the 20 year outlook. They wanted to signal to their constituents that even though they're not growing right now and they have capacity, but eventually they will need new schools. And so they wanted to add some verbiage in their plan this year to signal that. So it really is, it's not changing dramatically from what you adopted a couple years ago. so could we anticipate then like in the next six months like or when stuff changed that they'll come back because they'll be identifying land that they would need for future growth kind of thing yeah maybe if they have uh then we will say or if they purchased it because they they do have funds to purchase the property if they find a site and then we will update that and is this always based on a six-year growth projection yes so they they're not allowed to yeah to jump past that and it because it's it gets more speculative than uh but that they're through this whole gma update process as you well know uh there's a lot of uh growth allocated to existing cities and urban growth areas so and there is to the washougal area so if that materializes faster then they will they might be able to demonstrate the need for new facilities sooner so we will evaluate that next year to see if that looks like it's going to be on the in the next six year horizon starting next year any other questions okay uh any public comment

I'm going to put it out to online. If you are interested in providing comment online, please raise your virtual hand by pressing star 6 on your phone. I'm sorry, by pressing star 3 on your phone. Once you have been called on, please press star six to unmute yourself. Nobody online. And there's nobody in the hearing room who's interested in providing comments. So that concludes public comment for this item.

Okay, we now will close the public hearing testimony part. Bring it back to us. Is there any comments, questions, discussion? Or I will take a motion and a second.

Mr. Commissioner Barker, I'd like to go ahead and make a motion for CPZ202500007, Washougal School District, to approve as staff recommended. Mr. Commissioner Horan, I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please, Jeff?

Ryan Halbert?

Aye.

Mark Bergfold?

Aye.

Kyle Fadnas?

Aye.

Ron Barker. Aye. Jack Caron. Aye. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson. Aye. 7-0.

We have motion passes on Washougal. We now move on to CPZ 20250008, Woodland School District Capital Facilities Plan.

Staff. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. So we've got on the slide Woodland School District. We can go to slide 22. We evaluated the Woodland School District against the same criteria we used for the other districts. As it relates to Criterion A, staff found that the CFP includes the required elements and information as mandated in GMA and the Clark County Growth Management Plan. We found this future needs and facility locations outlined in the CFP to be consistent with GMA and the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive plan. We found the financing plan outlined in the CFP. to be made up of general obligation bonds, state construction funds, and impact fees. Staff found the financing plan is consistent with the GMA impact fee related state statutes and the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive growth management plan. Based on these findings, staff conclude that proposal met criterion A. Next slide, please. Staff evaluated the plan against Criterion B and found that the district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable based on the approach outlined in the CFP. Staff found the standard of service for the district to be consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts. Staff found the school district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County Code Section 40.620.040. Based on the findings, staff concluded the proposal met Criterion B. Next slide, please. The Woodland School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on August 14th of 2025, a copy of which was included in your hearing packet. And they are recommending the county formally adopt the plan and the associated impact fees on your screen, which are $10,545.93 for single family dwellings, $13,664.57 for multifamily dwellings, The public comment letter was also submitted for this case and was forwarded to you with your packet of information. And as outlined in the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal being consistent with all criteria. That concludes staff's presentation on this last request.

questions for staff regarding woodland school district capital facilities plan this is commissioner leduc montgomery um am i under am i correctly understanding that the school district was allocating 100 of the new growth of the cost to new growth and none to like existing deficiency or um i don't know like upgrade needs And I don't know if that's odd or not. It just kind of, if that's true, it kind of struck me as odd to say we need a completely new school just because we have new people coming in as opposed to maybe there's other factors that then the growth kind of puts it a little over the edge or something to that effect.

So I'm sorry, could you repeat your question? I'm not sure I understood it.

And I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. Are they allocating all of the cost of the new development to new growth as opposed to, oh, our current facility is deficient or has other upgrade needs, and therefore we need to increase fees, if that makes sense?

So let me just check their formula here. So and it would be similar to Hawkinson yeah it appears that they are that if they are right at capacity right now in their elementary school then then the new school is is completely needed for the new growth so so the formula takes that into account that's correct.

Leigh Ann, Commissioner Halbert here. Just wanted to clarify, is that $13,664 per rental unit being built? A pretty substantial increase for each apartment.

Again, it's a function of the formula. We're plugging in the data, and that's what comes out. But I also mention again that that will be recalculated next year based on this directive from the state that the impact piece need to be scaled to the size of the unit. So that will come down.

Hopefully.

So this will be a temporary number. Yeah.

And are these... single families just in Clark County or are these also in Cowlitz County?

Clark County and the City of Woodland, we can't assess them in Cowlitz County.

Okay, so only the portion of Woodland that is in Clark County?

Which is most of where the growth is occurring anyway. I'm not sure there's much allocated to the Cowlitz County.

So the new school then would most likely be in Clark County. In the city of Woodland, most likely. Okay, yeah.

Any other comments? Questions? Just to clarify that. So most of the city of Woodland is in Cowlitz County, correct? And it's just a little horseshoe portion around Horseshoe Lake that is Clark County.

I don't know where that, but they can charge impact fees throughout the city of Woodland.

They can, even though. And then do our county impact fees...

Reflected in as the city's impact fees if the city is in if most of the city is actually not in Clark County The city has to adopt the the same capital facilities plan and impact fee Request so by separate action so they they could decide to in fact They they're in the process of analyzing that right now. They could decide to to adopt the same fee That's before you deny it or something less

So, and this is my lack of understanding of how some of this stuff works, because Cowlitz County... isn't allowed to charge impact that's correct yes but a city is allowed so like the city of longview would be able to charge impact fees it's it's because the city of woodland energy partially in a gma county they can elect oh they have a little they have a loophole yes okay that's what i wanted that's what i was trying to that's where i was getting into yeah there in uh a portion of woodland is in uh

REQUIRE THE GMA PLANNING COUNTY. SO THE CITY OF WOODLAND HAS ALWAYS BEEN PLANNING ALONG WITH CLARKE COUNTY.

IT'S UNIQUE. THANK YOU. MAY I ASK THAT YOU GUYS PLEASE SPEAK ONE AT A TIME? BECAUSE I'M LOSING THE ENDS OF WHAT YOU GUYS ARE SAYING, TALKING OVER EACH OTHER.

WE'LL DO BETTER, CINDY.

This is Commissioner Barker. I guess I need clarification on what we just stated then. In regards to this request, only the portion of Clark County is going to collect impact fees. So these numbers are reflective specifically on building permits that are going to come through the city, but on the Clark County side. And the Cowlitz County side, which will contribute children to it, has no impact fees. Is that correct?

That's correct.

That's correct. Okay. This is Oliver Jacque again. You have to look at the, I believe on the boundary of the school district. which majority of that boundary is in Clark County, I believe. I don't think it's only the Horseshoe Lake area. But you are correct that this impact field will be collected within the boundary of the Woodland School District.

In Clark County. Excuse me, Commissioner Barker, just again for more clarification then. The portion of the Woodland School District in Clark County outside of the city is not going to have any multifamily building.

True.

Okay.

Because there is no multifamily zoning.

And inside the city in the Horseshoe District, I don't believe there's any zoning for multifamily buildings. building either. So when we look at this number, what was the school board hoping to do? Are they hoping to multiply this outside of the Clark County area?

Yes, Liam Bremer. So the school board, we calculate the fee for the district. And so true, you may not collect this multifamily fee in Clark County, but there will be apartments in the city of Woodland, which is the same amount if the city adopts the same amount. SO THE SCHOOL BOARD ONLY, I GUESS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING IT, THEY ONLY CALCULATE THE FEE, ONLY ONE FEE FOR THE WHOLE DISTRICT. AND THEY DON'T CALCULATE IT PER CITY OR PER COUNTY.

YEAH. SO JUST TO CLARIFY, WE COULD $10,000 fee. It's because we're not going to be, it doesn't look like there'll be any multifamily. So $10,500 fee for single family in Clark County. But the city of Woodland, they're not bound by this number or is it just a precedent setting or do they, can they go, we're going to charge $3,000 per multifamily and $3,000 for like, they have that option. They're not bound. Yeah.

that's correct in that reciprocity they're not that's right they can split it up that's that's correct and so it's it's ultimately the jurisdiction's call on what the fee is and each jurisdiction has autonomy to decide what that fee is so the the city of woodland could decide that no they're not going to adopt these same fees as the county did and and they have that option

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS JUST FOR A LITTLE BIT OF CLARIFICATION THE EMBRAMAH IS CORRECT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A THIS IS OLIVO JACOB SPEAKING HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PREFERENCE THAT THE CITIES GO THROUGH THEIR OWN HEARING PROCESS FIRST SO WE KNOW WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO BE ASSESSING. OUR GOAL IS ALWAYS TO BE CONSISTENT WHERE THAT IS POSSIBLE, BUT LEON IS CORRECT, MS. LEON BREMA IS CORRECT THAT THE JURISDICTION, IN THIS CASE THE CITY OF WOODLAND CAN DECIDE TO CHARGE A MUCH LOWER FEE. THAT'S THEIR CALL. coming to the boundary issue, when you look at, this is what I was getting at earlier, when you look at the other school districts that are in the county, Evergreen overlaps, Evergreen School District. Some portion are in the city of Commerce. Some portion are in the city of Vancouver. We charge the same fees. The cities charge the same fee. Barrow Ground is the same. A portion of Barrow Ground is all the way to, well, we say majority of Barrow Ground School District is all in the county. But the boundary of Barrow-Grant School District extends all the way to the 179 corridor, for example. You look at Richfield School District. It comes further south and absorbs the whole Clark County, Fay Area, and some portion of 179 we charge the same fee as the city of richfield so that's what i was saying earlier that we preferred the cities because you wouldn't want unless you want to use a policy approach where you want to direct growth to some SAVE FOR A CITY IF YOU IF THE IMPACT FEE IS MUCH LOWER DEVELOPERS CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT WE ARE OFTEN PREFERRED WE WANT THE FEES TO BE CONSISTENT ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FOR STAFF OR LEON ANY UH WELL BEFORE THAT DO WE HAVE ANYBODY ONLINE

Just to quickly run through the instructions again. Those who have joined remotely via computer or phone, please raise your virtual hand or press start for you on your phone to let us know if you'd like to provide comment. Nobody online and still nobody in the hearing room who'd like to provide comments. So that does conclude public comment for this agenda item.

OK, bringing it back, hearing none, we'll bring it back to the commissioners. Any discussion and or a motion and a second?

This commissioner, I think just for discussion purposes, my concern is the jump in fees, especially with the multifamily. a place that needs housing um and that will not be able to command high rents that can create some real barriers to to housing and i think that that's something to really think about so any other questions or comments or this is commissioner barca so jack going back to your statement are you saying that you consider this too large yeah i would i would keep it i would keep it as as is just because that is not a market that can absorb really high costs if i'm in downtown vancouver i can absorb pretty high costs because our housing costs and you're what we're able to sell houses for what we're able to rent apartments for um when you look at the city of woodland um it's it's just it's just not there it's just the market's not there the housing costs aren't there so the the cost to produce the house and then what you can sell it for um and especially if you want apartments and some you know you're starting to do some smaller apartments that could be really really problematic and so i think it's in my opinion i'd vote no now and then we look at it in six months when when they're looking at you know, the reduced stuff. But I certainly wouldn't want to kill somebody's project right now that's getting ready to build based on a high impact fee, especially on multifamily.

Okay, so this is Commissioner Barker. For my understanding then, you're seeing the single family fee as high but acceptable, but on the multifamily is not acceptable?

I would argue, especially in that market, the single family fee is still too high. SEE, WE'RE LOOKING AT ALL THESE FEES BECAUSE RIGHT AFTER THIS WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A WHOLE OTHER SET OF FEES COMING UP, RIGHT? AND ALL OF THESE FEES ARE REALLY STARTING TO STACK HEAVY ON HOUSING COSTS. AND WE KEEP SAYING WE HAVE AN AFFORDABILITY CRISIS, BUT THEN EVERYBODY'S, YOU KNOW, KEEPS ADDING UP. you know, where's the line? And that's kind of the, yeah, that's where I'm struggling.

Okay. It sounds like the line is Cowlitz County.

Well, there's that.

I mean, there's a difference. I mean, La Center, we were going up to 7,000. Woodland's going up to 10,000. La Center, you can get more for your housing than you can in Woodland. And so, you know, if I'm looking at that, I mean, the reality is I don't like any of these fees. But, you know, I'm trying to balance the thing, so.

Commissioner Halbert here, well, it may work itself out. If you can't afford to build an apartment, you're not going to have students that are going to overwhelm the school district either. So one way of controlling what happens. But I'm with you, Jack, and Woodland provides a lot of housing for the workforce, and this is a substantial fee on an apartment complex.

Any other questions or comments?

This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. Do we have any sense on what the fees on like a typical apartment would get adjusted down to in the next year? Do we have to reopen up to ask questions like that?

So there's a consultant that the school district's collectively hired to come up with a methodology for complying with the new law and how we're going to scale it to either size of dwelling or number of bedrooms. That's one of the options that the statute provides. So it's not just half or three-quarters or a quarter. It's based on student generation rates for students related to the size of the dwelling. So it's complicated, and it's a long way of saying I don't know what those numbers are going to look like until we get the calculation figured out. First of all, the methodology, and then we have to calculate new student generation rates, and then we have to apply it to the numbers in our capital facilities plan. And so I just couldn't even begin to guess what that looks like. OK. Thanks.

Any other questions or comments? OK. Will we have a motion or a second from anybody?

Yeah. Commissioner Halbert, I'll make a motion to approve CPZ 2025-00008, Woodland School District Capital Facilities Plan as presented.

Do we have a second?

Commissioner Burgfold, I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please?

Brian Halbert?

Aye.

Mark Burgfold? Aye. Kyle Fladness?

No.

Ron Barker?

No.

Jack Caron? No. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery?

No.

Carl Johnson? Yes. Three to four.

Motion fails, correct? Correct. Okay, motion fails. Okay, with that said, we are now done with the school district, is that correct?

That is correct. That is correct, we're going to the fire districts now.

I WANT TO JUST GIVE A QUICK, MAYBE A FOUR OR FIVE-MINUTE BREAK FOR CINDY RIGHT NOW AND THEN WE'LL MOVE RIGHT INTO THE FIRE AND WE'LL GET THOSE GUYS DONE AND OUT OF HERE. TAKE A FIVE-MINUTE BREAK AND COME ON BACK. CINDY SAYS SHE NEEDS TEN. TEN MINUTES. We're now moving on to CPZ 2025-0010, Fire District Number 3, Capital Facilities Plan. Bart Ketching. Are you here, Bart? Yes, you are.

I HAVE MADE A LOG BACK INTO MY COMPUTER HERE SO I HAVE TO GET MY PHONE TO DO THE DUAL AUTHENTICATION BUT OLIVER IS GOING TO SAY SOMETHING.

GOOD EVENING, PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS. I JUST WANT TO MAKE A VERY QUICK REMARK. because you might say this is new. Yes, this is new. The fire district came to Clark County Council and asked for the opportunity to assess fire impact fee. And the council granted that. IF YOU RECALL, YOU KNOW, TIME FLIES, BUT WE CAME TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION THROUGH THE DOCKET PROCESS AND AMENDED TITLE 40 TO ADD OPPORTUNITY TO THE FIRE DISTRICT TO ASSESS FIRE IMPACT. THAT ORDINANCE I BELIEVE WAS ADOPTED BY COUNCIL IN 2024. I DON'T WANT TO MAKE ANY OTHER COMMENTS. THE FIRE DISTRICT, SOME OF THEM ARE HERE. THEY DID APPEAR BEFORE THE COUNCIL AND MAKE THE PLEA BECAUSE THEY'RE SEEING GROWTH EVEN THOUGH MAJORITY OF THE FIRE DISTRICTS ARE IN THE RURAL AREA, THEY'RE SEEING GROWTH JUST AS IT'S OCCURRING IN THE URBAN AREA EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE PUT MAJORITY OF THE GROWTH IN THE URBAN AREA AND THERE IS A PROVISION in the GMA to minimize, not really minimize, but look at the growth that is occurring and see how much growth you put in the rural area because it requires infrastructure whether you're drawing BUILDING ADDITIONAL WELL OR DRAWING FROM EXISTING WATER RESOURCES AND THE INFRASTRUCTURE THERE TO SUPPORT GROWTH IN THE RURAL AREA WHERE YOU DO NOT PROVIDE OTHER URBAN LEVELS OF SERVICES. SO THERE IS A DIFFERENCE IN THE NUMBER OF GROWTH WE PUT IN THE RURAL AREA. For some of these areas, based on the preferred plan that you reviewed, we don't see any significant change in the rural zoning. However, there are capacity in the rural area that they need to stay. The fire district will speak when it's their turn in terms of the number of calls, the equipment that they need, things doesn't remain the same. Their physical buildings will require expansion and all that stuff. But I don't need to speak to them. They have they are here to speak on that. So but we'll give the presentation in terms of our review. You asked a lot of question about the formula. We have followed that. So I'LL LEAVE IT UP TO BERT AND WE'RE HERE TO ASK THE QUESTIONS AS WE CAN. THANK YOU.

GOOD EVENING, COMMISSIONERS. BART CATCHING, COMMUNITY PLANNING, AND HAPPY TO FINALLY BE UP HERE TALKING WITH YOU ALL ABOUT THIS. I INTEND TO FOLLOW A SIMILAR APPROACH THAT WE SETTLED ON FOR THE LAST GROUP OF hearings in that we have to gavel in and gavel out each one of these, but the basic framework of analysis from the county's perspective is the same. So I'll be a little more detailed in my comments on this first one and then just hit the highlights on the other ones and leave the majority of the time and energy for question and answer. I will say at the outset that I'm very pleased and grateful that I have two of the fire chiefs in the room. I have Chris Drone from District Three, and um and uh and uh remind david russell from uh the newer chief um from district uh six in the room and then online i have um uh gordon uh chief chief gordon brooks from district 10 and um john knorr from clark cowlitz and they are all available for comments and i would definitely uh defer to them for any technical questions outside of the staff report thank you um so what Without further ado, the first one we're looking at, we're just going in the order, numerical order, that's how we put them on the agenda for you all. The CPZ 2025-00010, District 3 Capital Facilities Plan and Impact Fees, as Oliver mentioned. WE ARE IN A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT SITUATION THAN THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN THAT WE DON'T HAVE AN EXISTING PLAN THAT WE ARE ASKING TO AMEND AND UPDATE. WE ARE ASKING THAT YOU ALL PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION ON A NEW PLAN THAT HAS BEEN REQUESTED FROM THESE FOUR DISTRICTS. THEY ARE THE FOUR DISTRICTS THAT HAVE CHOSEN TO MOVE FORWARD WITH THIS SINCE THE 2024 ADOPTION OF THE CODE THAT ALLOWED THE FIRE FEES. So that code is found in 4620.060 and various parts in that portion, chapter of the County Development Code. IF YOU COULD SCROLL DOWN, JEFF, TO THE TABLE FOR THIS DISTRICT. THERE WE GO. THE SUMMARY TABLE. SO DISTRICT 3, JUST TO SUMMARIZE REAL QUICK SO YOU GET ORIENTED, DISTRICT 3 COVERS 92 SQUARE MILES, SERVES A POPULATION OF APPROXIMATELY 46,000. The boundary includes Battleground and as well as the communities of Hawkinson, Brush Prairie, Vensburg, Hyson, Battleground Lake, and the surrounding areas. So they are utilizing the formula that was approved by county council and adopted in the county code in 2024. Using that formula gets you these numbers that they're requesting. So This is the same that was presented to you all in the work session. The staff reports are the exact same, so nothing has changed since our discussion two weeks ago. The proposed fees are in front of you. That the formula generates based on the inputs that the fire districts used in their capital facilities plan. 992 for single family, 505 for a multi-family unit, and non-residential construction per square foot cost of $1.36. the fire districts, much like the analysis for the school districts, have to both meet GMA and the comp plan, and then once we establish that the submitted plans meet that threshold criteria, then we move on to the DEVELOPMENT CODE CRITERIA WHICH WAS ADOPTED AS PART OF THAT CODE UPDATE IN 2024. WE STRUCTURED OUR STAFF REPORTS THE SAME AS CLOSE AS WE COULD TO THE SCHOOL DISTRICT STAFF REPORTS UNDERSTANDING THAT THIS IS STILL A DIFFERENT SET OF FEES WITH A DIFFERENT FORMULA BUT WE WANTED EVERYBODY TO BE LOOKING AT ROUGHLY THE SAME FORMAT OF A STAFF REPORT. SO THEREFORE WE HAVE WHAT YOU'LL SEE IN THESE STAFF REPORTS IS A CRITERIA IN A SO THE BIG FIRST GROUP THAT SPEAKS TO THE APPLICABILITY OR NOT THE APPLICABILITY, WHETHER THE PLANS HAVE MET THE GMA CRITERIA FOR CAPITAL FACILITIES PLANS AND IMPACT FEES AND THEN OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLAN CRITERIA AND THEN ONCE WE ESTABLISH THROUGH OUR FINDINGS IN THE STAFF REPORT AND WE SAY YES TO THAT THEN WE MOVE ON TO PART B WHICH IS THE more specific section of 4620.050.B and the four-part analysis, very similar to what we were just talking about with the schools. So, without going through the process of reading the staff report, back to you all, the general thrust for ALL OF THE DISTRICTS AND STARTING WITH DISTRICT THREE WHICH THIS HEARING IS ABOUT IS THAT STAFF FOUND AS DISCUSSED ON THREE PAGES THREE AND FOUR OF THE STAFF REPORT AND THIS IS THE SAME PAGINATION FOR ALL THE STAFF REPORTS I BELIEVE THAT THE FIRE DISTRICTS CAPITAL FACILITIES PLAN um includes the required elements and information listed in the rcw and wax sections and is consistent with the land use and capital facilities elements of the comprehensive plan the details of those findings are in the staff report and then the second general criterion that the plans must meet uh part b with 4620 050 b uh that um A, that the district's forecast of future needs appears reasonable. B, whether the anticipated level of funding described in the district's financing plan appears reasonable and historically reliable. C, whether the level of service standards set by the district are reasonably consistent with the standards set by other districts and communities of similar socioeconomic profile. And D, whether the district appropriately applied the formula set out in 46-20-060. And again, as we discussed at the work session, FINDINGS ON THOSE CRITERIA AND OUR RECOMMENDATION IS THAT THE DISTRICT'S PLANS AS SUBMITTED AND STARTING WITH DISTRICT THREE HERE FOR THIS HEARING IS THAT THE PLANS DO MEET ALL FOUR OF THOSE CRITERIA THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT AND IN PARTICULAR DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO THE SECOND finding or the yeah the third finding the that all these plans have a section in referring to level of service in and it's different than school level of service obviously it's the fire response time and and that nature of level of service and all of these plans either maintain or improve the level of service based on if they were able to GENERATE THESE FEES AND ADD THEM TO THEIR OVERALL FINANCING OF THEIR CAPITAL FACILITIES AND THEN THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO MEET THEIR STANDARDS THAT THEY NEED TO MEET. SO THE CONCLUSION FOR SECTION B, CRITERION B IS THAT ALSO THIS PLAN MEETS THAT AND SO WE RECOMMEND THAT staff recommends the planning commission recommends that to the council to approve uh proposed fire district three capital facilities plan impact fees of 99.992 for single family 505 for multi-family and a dollar 36 per square foot for non-residential development that concludes my brief comments and um again we have chief drone here who i know would uh at least like a

short opportunity to speak to you all and answer any questions but any questions for me before we get to that any questions for staff chief do you want to you can come up here if you want to and sit up if you got any questions for you guys yeah come on yeah come on yeah sure Yeah, if you start talking. So is there any questions for either the applicants or staff?

This is Commissioner Heron. I'm going to need somebody to kind of walk me through kind of how the formula works and then how we get 992 for single-family residents versus 505 for multifamily residents, if that's based on what kind of service, what kind of service is provided, and what's how that's looked at, I guess, so.

Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. This is Chris drone fire chief fire district three. Uh, so the question is, uh, how do we differentiate between single family multifamily in the formula or basically walk me if you just walk me through the formula and how you come up with that.

And then what we're looking at as far as, um, I know like capital facilities is, you know, for equipment. So, and it's kind of like this ongoing equipment fund that we can, that, you know, that's different. So it's buildings and equipment. Building, yes. Right. Yeah, buildings and equipment. Where like schools, it's buildings one time. And so just kind of how that's looked at, I know like versus service level, because I know what like 75% are medical calls, maybe 25% is fire. And so then I look at multifamily residences of like, well, why is it only 505? If 75% is medical, it's not fire. So just, yeah, kind of rationale on how the formula works and what that looks like.

YEAH. I THINK I CAN HELP WITH THAT. I THINK I CAN HELP WITH THAT. SO ORIGINALLY WHAT WE DO IS LOOK SO ORIGINALLY WHAT WE DO IS LOOK AT WHAT OUR CAPITAL NEEDS ARE FOR AT WHAT OUR CAPITAL NEEDS ARE FOR THE NEXT 20 YEARS. THE NEXT 20 YEARS. THAT INCLUDES STATIONS, WE THEN CONSULT WITH THE COUNTY AND IN MY CASE THE CITY OF BATTLEGROUND TO SEE WHAT THEY HAVE PLANNED FOR 20 YEARS AS FAR AS GROWTH. AFTER CONSULTING WITH THE COUNTY AND THE CITY, WE DETERMINED THAT DISTRICT 3 IS LOOKING AT 40% GROWTH IN THE NEXT 20 YEARS. So we take that 40% and we apply it in a formula. So if you want to, I don't know if you can see the formulas on there, but so we take 40% of the total amount and that's attributed to new growth. So our case, we started with 32 million and 40% of that, 13 million. Then what we do is we look at the volume of response that we have to those different land use areas. So we have single family, multifamily, and commercial. In our case, for single family, we respond to single family 64% of the time. So their fees are a little bit higher. Multifamily it's 11% of the time and commercial is 26% of the time. So we wanted to be cognizant that each land use type was paying their appropriate share. And then I think there was a question about apparatus versus stations or?

So I think the fire impact fee is different in how it can be utilized than any other impact fee. So any other income tax fee for the most part is just it's a one time capital use thing and it can't be paid for old stuff. It's got to be for new and for new, you know, new capital facilities. Fire is unique in that it can be used for engines and like, oh, I need a new engine so we can still dip into that fund. versus an ongoing maintenance thing. So the state law allows for some pretty extraordinary flexibility from an impact fee standpoint. I guess my concern there is it turns into a slush fund to where it's We're taking impact fees and then not collecting enough in general revenue because people don't want to pay more in taxes to, you know, we've had trouble with fire bonds and, you know. So I think that's my concern in that. That's just more of a policy question on the county side, you know, for the commissioners. But, yeah, so I think it is – I think from a long-term standpoint, because we're not dealing with a one-time purchase, is it a moving target, if that makes sense?

It's a rolling target. So, you know, needs change, right? Growth changes. It goes up, it goes down. Specifically with the apparatus, I can tell you that with growth, you have more calls, right? So you're running the wheels off those things. We have engines that, you know, would have in the past lasted 30, 35 years. Now they have a 20-year lifespan just because we're responding more and we're responding more because we're growing, right? So I think that's the mindset of policymakers who allowed apparatus to be part of a capital plan and eligible for impact fees. Speaking to going to the voters, as you know, we have the capacity to assess a property tax levy. uh and and then uh ask for a lift on that so uh with that with fire district three and most of the fire districts uh were in a position where we use that to fund our operational costs and specifically for us that was getting enough people to staff the apparatus right so our goal is to have three people on on each engine so that was the ask with the with the levy um I don't know if that answered your question or at least addressed.

Yeah. And what percentage of, if new growth requires one engine, you know, $2 million or whatever it is, what percentage of that are you trying to capture from impact fees?

40%. 40%. Yeah.

Okay.

YOU PROBABLY ANSWERED THIS. THE 13 MILLION. THE 13 MILLION. WHAT IS THAT AGAIN? WHAT IS THAT AGAIN?

THAT'S 40%. THAT'S 40%. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

COMMENTS? This is Commissioner Barca. I guess more in the context of a comment, but non-residential buildings, I'm assuming we're talking like commercial and ag buildings, things of that nature?

Correct.

Okay. $1.36 per square foot seems like a very, very high number when you think about the size of many of the buildings that are getting built for commercial purposes. Was there, other than the aspect that this is what the formula rolls out, was there any discussion about what that does towards the aspect of

raising the cost on a building let's say 10 000 square feet is going to end up like 13 000 dollars yeah for that to answer your question we we strictly deferred to the math so i mean we're running to those running calls to those uh commercial businesses 26 of the time so we didn't want to to alter the math on that but i understand what you're saying it

Has there been any discussion about the aspect of trying to work out perhaps mandatory sprinkling or something of that nature to drive down the number of calls?

Yes. So that's already in RCW. It's not included in our particular CFP. But for not for commercial, but for single family, if you do put in a sprinkler system, then you only pay the portion that's attributed to the EMS side. So you would get, in our case, a 16% discount for having that sprinkler system.

Okay. Yeah. I think. jack um thinking about it just the aspect of a single family dwelling putting in a sprinkler system it's probably about 20 grand it can yeah it's been a minute so i put one but 15 to 20 is is probably right depending upon what water source you have yeah there's a bunch of factors yeah yeah because you got to get the water pressure

Yeah, and back to your point, Commissioner, I don't think I touched on it. You know, primarily we do run EMS calls, right? But the large expense is that operational readiness component, so we can respond, right?

And we want you to respond when we need you. So question on the 26% to commercial. So I have some real questions. Like when we look at we need a manufacturing hub, we need a new, you know, I know there's some people expanding out in Battleground, you know, with some manufacturing jobs and different things. Is that 26% of the time we're going to a large warehouse facility? I'm thinking like somebody builds 100,000 square feet of light industrial building. Are we charging them $136,000 in fire impact fee when it's warehouse or if it's a storage unit facility or if it's versus... you know, the local Fred Meyer over the CVS and the little stores where you might be responding a lot more because of just the volume of people. And then, so is, is there a consideration there? Because it seems like it's all being treated the same. It is. And it isn't the same. I'm,

There is consideration, not in this iteration. So to be clear, this one was approved by our board in 2024 and then by the city of Battleground in December of 2024. They had a similar comment. SO WE ARE LOOKING AT SEPARATING SOME OF THOSE COMMERCIAL OCCUPANCIES, SOME OF THE ASSISTED CARE GET SLUMPED IN, RIGHT? THE ASSISTED LIVING FACILITIES BECAUSE IT'S NOT MULTIFAMILY, RIGHT? SO THAT WAS WHERE I WAS LEANING THE MOST WAS SEEING IF WE CAN CARVE THAT OUT AND SEE WHAT THAT WOULD DO TO THE COMMERCIAL RATE. SO I WOULD RECOMMEND WE DO THAT DURING PERIODIC REVIEW. BUT IT'S DEFINITELY ON THE TABLE AND SOMETHING WE HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT.

why wouldn't we do that now? I mean, if that's the, I know we have the proposal, but that's kind of our job is to go, well, if, you know, warehouse a creates almost zero calls and the assisted living creates 320 calls a year, um, SHOULDN'T WE TREAT THOSE DIFFERENT? SHOULDN'T THAT BE PART OF THE PROPOSAL BROUGHT TO US THAT WE'RE KIND OF SEGREGATING THE ACTUAL IMPACT VERSUS LUMPING IN, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE ESPECIALLY IF WE'RE TRYING TO PROMOTE JOB GROWTH, BECAUSE OUR PURVIEW IS WE'RE PLANNING, RIGHT? SO WE'RE LOOKING AT JOB GROWTH AND HOUSING AND EVERYTHING. So I get concerned when we just start lumping that in and we're like, well, look, we needed a larger manufacturing facility, but then we're starting to hammer them, you know, versus small individual stores that may have a higher load. And yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that is, it's a long analysis. I'm not trying to make an excuse. That's something that we can do. To your point, most of these facilities are in the city of Battleground. My goal is to keep fees consistent with the city and the county. And once that happens, then adjust both of those at the same time so we're not looked at as, COUNTY SUBSIDIZING THE CITY OR VICE VERSA WITH IMPACT FEES.

ANY QUESTIONS? ONLINE? OK. HEARING NONE, BRING IT BACK, DO WE HAVE ANYBODY ONLINE THAT SPEAKS TO THIS?

I'M GOING TO GIVE INSTRUCTIONS AGAIN. FOR THOSE ONLINE, IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN PROVIDING COMMENT, PLEASE RAISE YOUR VIRTUAL HAND OR PRESS START FREE ON YOUR PHONE TO LET US KNOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO PROVIDE COMMENTS. NOBODY HAS DONE SO. AND STILL NOBODY IN THE HEARING ROOM WHO IS INTERESTED IN PROVIDING COMMENTS. SO WE'LL GO AHEAD AND CLOSE PUBLIC COMMENT ON THIS AGENDA ITEM.

Okay, comments public comments close. Let's bring it back to us. Is there any discussion? I know this is new to us or questions to each other.

This is commissioner fatness. Yeah, I just kind of want to echo what Jack said earlier and I share the same concerns with him where these. These fees and what they can be used for are completely different than the schools. Looking through some of them, I see a $90,000 pickup truck and a $30,000 boat. And to me, I do appreciate all the work that the districts have put into these plans. But to me, it almost seems like a way to skirt the democratic process of going out to the voters for bonds and levies, or I should say levy lifts. and can be used as kind of a slush fund going forward. And so, you know, just with the nature of what these can be spent on, I don't know if I can even recommend any of them. Especially as Jack mentioned, you know, we have this affordability crisis, and this is just kind of one more fee that we tack on, one more thing to make housing more unaffordable. and, you know, potentially kill jobs to with the high commercial fees here. So that's just kind of my comments on on all of these fees in general, not not just this district.

Anybody else?

I think I have him spell his name, please.

Fadness?

That was Commissioner Fadness, F-A-D-N-E-S-S. No, I'm sorry.

Person testifying. Throne?

Yes, it's D as in dog, R-O-N-E.

I think for me, my biggest heartburn is... the non-residential construction and that it it feels a little half-baked that it wasn't it wasn't thoughtful enough and Quite frankly, I expect more when we're when we're putting real money real fees on our community that I Want to I want a better analysis and better justification for it so Yeah, that's because I just, I just see it as like, somebody wants to come in and do a 50,000 square foot warehouse and start creating jobs. And we go, here's a new bill for you. Um, even though it's, you're not having that kind of impact. Um, it's not the, not the message I want to send to our community. So I think it, you know, not completely opposed to it, but I think it needs more work. So that's where I'm at.

This is commissioner Brookfield and, um, I come from a career, not only in schools, but in fire, did some of these same calculations. So I understand the gist, although Washington does things different than California. We have the largest county in the lower 48 states and the county fire department. So as you, this is a hybrid, just so my fellow commissioners, The schools, basically talking facilities, as Jack pointed out, once you start rolling in equipment and different equipment is required for different kinds of warehouse, different kinds of goods, what type of industry it is, and nothing is cheap. If we think the cars went up and the price of pickup trucks, fire trucks are just phenomenal. probably take the figure you have in your mind and double it. But it's a necessary evil if I can speak kind of on behalf of the fire service and trying to be proactive, which I give all the chiefs that are here tonight a lot of credit for doing that, trying to stay ahead of the game. um you don't want to be on the back end where well you know we have reserve equipment just wasn't up to the task and we've had all this stuff um it is you're kind of the the tail of the dog but when things catch on fire, explosions and stuff happens, then all of a sudden that tail is blamed for a lot of stuff if you can't adequately take care of it as you have taken care of everything else in the past. So you don't want to be on the, not prepared, put it that way. So yeah, from what I can see and listening to the conversation, There's probably some refinements that could be done and a little bit in the delivery, but just to give you a feel for what they're dealing with and trying to plan ahead. So you guys have a pretty good idea of the timeline, how much time it takes to plan a building, especially a commercial building. and actually see it to where it's you know commissioned and put into use it's about the same length of time if you order a piece of apparatus you better start two to three years before and hope that the manufacturer that you're going to go to because you want that engine that they have enough room. It's like, you know, if you got to buy all your planes from Boeing or Airbus, you hope that somebody hasn't put in an order for 200 planes and you're going to wait. So anyway, I just want to give fire credit. Thank you guys for being there. And it's just something we'll probably wrestle with. But it's kind of the nature of the beast. So just want to make that comment.

Any other comments?

THIS IS COMMISSIONER LADUKE MONTGOMERY. I WANT TO CLARIFY MY UNDERSTANDING ON THIS KIND OF BACK AND FORTH. THE 26% ON COMMERCIAL IS BECAUSE IT WAS 26% OF THE CALLS. IS THAT HOW THAT NUMBER WAS CALCULATED?

YES.

OKAY. THANKS. I JUST WANT TO CONFIRM THAT.

Any other comments, Ron?

Yeah. This is Commissioner Barker. Based on what Mark said, I think I want to be clear, and I believe this is the belief of the commission themselves. It isn't that we're questioning the mission at all. It's the aspect that this portion of the cost of doing business is just one of the portions that we see on a regular basis, right? And so sometimes we look at data and it's very clear. Sometimes it's muddy and it makes it more difficult to ascertain whether the ask is well thought out and clearly understood or whether it's a wish list of best intentions. In this particular case, I think as we see each one of these fire districts come forward, one of the things I noticed is in the capital facilities line items, it doesn't appear that even the terminology of what equipment is being requested is the same or that there's been consultation about what you believe pricing should look like um i think staff vehicles is just like one example it goes from sixty thousand to ninety five thousand or something like that depending upon which fire district um there may be specific needs that one district has over another but it's difficult i think for us to ascertain that when we see this kind of fluctuation and what we're dealing with Also, the aspect of what we were presented, and we're going to get to the other districts I know, but sprinkled or not sprinkled, I think in the pricing structure, I think everybody, if you have a price break or some differential because of that, I think that's really valuable for us to know and understand. So before you go to the county council, it may be advisable to polish these up a little bit and to make sure that terminology matches up and whatever you have in the way of actual price breaks or needs on a per foot basis or per dwelling basis, it's noted in there. I look at this and I say, okay, these are needs that district three has, and they believe that each one of them is valid. We have to take it back and just say, do we believe that this will in some fashion impede the growth of the commercial sector? And as I think Jack alluded to, if all commercial buildings are all wrapped up together, We can only look at it from the standpoint of thinking all commercial buildings are going to be generating jobs and they have a generalized value as opposed to the more specific, the more granular you can get for us, the easier it is for us to understand the mission and the impact of the particulars that you're looking at.

That's my comments.

Any others? JUST FOR MY TAKE, I THINK WE, I'M KIND OF WITH YOU, RON, PART OF WHAT YOU SAID. WE SEE SO MUCH OF THIS STUFF COMING AT US IN THIS PLAN AND I'M TALKING ABOUT THE GROWTH PLAN. AND I HAVE FROM THE STATE MANDATING US THINGS THAT I JUST GO, GREAT, WHY ARE WE EVEN HAVING TO VOTE ON IT? THE OTHER THING, CLIMATE, THE CLIMATE STUFF, TO ME, IT'S BEEN A HARD PILL. And and we consistently walk down this path and we do what we have to do. But when we get to something in my mind, and this is from a guy that grew up in Paradise, California, when you get it and it's the truth, you know where you want to ask that community right now, if you don't know who's gone. My high school gone. And those people, it'd be like that. It is not about and I agree with you. It's not about the mission. But I just think that when we get to when we're when money is coming up and especially when we've started out, this is the first time we've seen these. It's not like the schools. And I would argue that the schools should know better when they send us stuff that isn't jiving. This is the first time. ALL RIGHT. I'LL TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. I HAVE TO TRUST THEM. I LIVE UP IN NORTH COUNTY. YOU KNOW, THAT PLACE COULD DO WHAT PARADISE DID. AND SO THEREFORE I AM WILLING TO SAY I'M GOING TO ACQUIESCE TO THE PROFESSIONALS AND WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO. SLUSH FUND IS KIND OF A BRUTAL TERM IN MY MIND BECAUSE I DON'T THINK WE'RE JUST OUT BUYING THINGS. I THINK WE'RE TRYING TO DO THE BEST WE CAN AND TAKE OUR COUNTY FROM THE 20th CENTURY RIGHT NOW INTO THE 21st CENTURY. I don't like, you know, if you look up at the center, the fire, the bond that's coming up, I'm in 10, District 10, the school district, the impact fees, build a house up there now is going to get tough. But I still believe the people that should, or the groups that should went out, you can't go up there and just willy-nilly build the place out, even in five increments, and then say, well, we don't have roads, we don't have fire, we don't have schools, but we have all the climate change stuff right. whatever that's my daily with today you know so i am very supportive of it i i struggle with what jack exactly with what you said affordability we're balancing this you know right now the prices of everything are here um income levels are here inflation is somewhere and we're all trying to catch this up but in the meantime uh we have to be responsible so that's my uh soapbox uh derby for the day so So any questions or I'll take a motion or in a second if we have one.

This is Commissioner Berthold. I'll make a motion to approve the request the fees for. Fire District number three as presented.

This is Commissioner Montgomery and I'll second that.

We have a motion in a second. That said, Jeff, can we get a local?

Brian Halbert. Aye. Mark Bergfold.

Aye.

Kyle Faddis.

No.

Ron Barka.

I'm going to say aye, but I'm very uncomfortable about the non-residential construction fee. Aye.

Jack Harun.

No.

Alicia LaDuke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson. Aye. 5-2.

Motion passes. Thank you very much for coming and staying so late. Thanks for having me again. Appreciate it. Okay, next up is CPZ 2025. I believe we're at Fire District 6, is that correct? Come on up.

COMMISSIONERS, THIS IS BARK CATCHING. CHIEF DRONE HAS BEEN THE STANDARD BEARER ON THIS PROJECT FROM THE GET GO AND HAS BEEN WORKING and very supportive both for me in my learning process but also for the other fire districts so he's agreed to stay and kind of be back up uh expert in waiting um especially since uh for district six we have a relatively new chief and uh so if you guys are okay with that that's how we'll approach it okay i mean we have the other we have the other two chiefs online as well to for when we get to them coming up here Okay. So.

Bart, one more thing before you start these. Just for my, I don't have a map in front of me. Just kind of letting us know where they're, kind of generally. Yeah. Not specifically.

Yeah. Then the map that I had at the work session, I mean, we could pull that up, but I have the descriptions, so I intend to rile that off for each one, if that helps. Okay. And is it helpful to have the population served in that stuff?

I mean, yeah, okay, all right, all right.

So next up, we are talking about CPZ 2025-00011, Fire District six capital facilities plan and impact fees. As I stated at the outset, I won't go through the criteria in any great detail unless you have a particular question. The findings For both the large criteria A that speaks to the RCWs and WACs and the county comprehensive plan, we found that it met the basic threshold requirements and then in the criteria B, the four-part review for this group, again, very similar plan in structure and approach, and so we also found that this Fire District 6 meets that criteria, and therefore we recommend approval. Jeff, if you could scroll down just to the little fee, TABLE THERE, GREAT. SO SIMILAR SITUATION, SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT NUMBERS, BUT SAME FORMULA, SAME APPROACH FOR DISTRICT 6 HERE, SINGLE FAMILY 791, MULTI-FAMILY 563 PER UNIT, NON-RESIDENTIAL 91 CENTS PER SQUARE FOOT. THIS DISTRICT 6 IS THE the district that serves 37 square miles in the communities of Hazel Dell, Salmon Creek, Philida, Mount Vista, and part of the Fairgrounds area. This district has a population that serves of 77,000 and growing. So a lot of folks in District 6, even for a smaller geographic area than some of the other districts. Again, I would bring your attention to the findings in the latter section, Criterion B, when we talk about the level of service. The level of service for fire districts goes from a rating of 1 being the best to 10 being the worst, and this plan would allow them to offer an overall level of service of 3. And so that is very good and very consistent if they're able to maintain this plan. Beyond that, I don't have any particular details that I think I would be able to answer any better than the fire chiefs and so we recommend approval as with the other plans and I'm happy to answer questions or punt to our chiefs.

Questions for staff?

Sure, Commissioner Halbert. What's the percentage of breakdown for calls? Chief Drone had residential, multifamily, and commercial. Is it the same breakdown? It seems like there's more. Well, of course, you got Union Ridge, a lot of commercial area there.

We do, and hello, good afternoon. My name's David Russell. I'm the fire chief with Clark County Fire District 6. And to give you guys a little bit of context, I do want to let you know I've been fire chief for about four months. I was not involved in developing this capital facilities plan. It was developed under previous district leadership and adopted by our board before my tenure as chief. MY ROLE TODAY IS TO TRY TO MY ROLE TODAY IS TO TRY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS I CAN. ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS I CAN. AS FAR AS THE CALL VOLUME AND AS FAR AS THE CALL VOLUME AND CALL SPLIT, WE RUN ABOUT 13,000 CALLS CALL SPLIT, WE RUN ABOUT 13,000 CALLS A YEAR IN OUR DISTRICT. A YEAR IN OUR DISTRICT. HOW THESE WERE DELINEATED WITH HOW THESE WERE DELINEATED WITH THE NON-RESIDENTIAL I WOULD Uh, I think they were, uh, assisted with the chief drones help as well. So I believe they are the same and he can jump in if he would like to add any more. Um, I was taking good notes and, uh, listening to your guys' concerns. And I certainly, uh, commiserate with the position that we're putting you in. Um, I would say many of the mandates that you guys are dealing with the fire service is feeling as well. To the extent of putting elevators in a two-story fire station that is mandated by federal law to a $4 million ladder truck to over a million dollar fire engine. With our service levels, we get about seven years front line out of a fire engine. before it has to be moved into reserve status. We can get about 15 to 16 years of full service life because of the miles we put on it. If you drive through any of our neighborhoods, you'll see our crews out there every day serving the public. It's a lot of calls. We average about 35 calls a day. So this is a revenue source that helps us provide those services. Obviously, we are trying to address the growth in our area with this, and this provides us that opportunity. I certainly, again, hear the commission as they speak about the concern with what we are able to spend this on. I will also confirm, as one of the commissioners did note, that THERE IS NO SLUSH FUND IN THE FIRE SERVICE. I REALLY WISH THERE WAS. WE WILL GO OUT FOR EVERY LIFT THAT WE CAN IN ORDER TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON AND KEEP THE RIGS COMING OUT WHEN THE COMMUNITY CALLS US. SO WE ARE IN THAT POSITION NOW. I GUESS I DON'T KNOW IF I COMPLETELY ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION. I JUST WANTED TO OPEN WITH A STATEMENT AS I HEARD SOME OF THOSE QUESTIONS PREVIOUSLY.

Yeah, thanks. Maybe if on the screen they could put the formula breakdown like we saw for District 3, that would be helpful.

Yeah, I'm finding that. And that might answer the question. I'm finding that page right now. BEAR WITH ME BECAUSE I WASN'T EXACTLY SURE HOW THIS BEAR WITH ME BECAUSE I WASN'T EXACTLY SURE HOW THIS CONVERSATION WAS GOING TO GO. CONVERSATION WAS GOING TO GO.

WHILE WE'RE WAITING, I LIKE WHILE WE'RE WAITING, I LIKE WHAT COMMISSIONER BARCUS SAID WHAT COMMISSIONER BARCUS SAID TOO. TOO. I KNOW THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I KNOW THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE'VE RUN THROUGH THIS. WE'VE RUN THROUGH THIS. HIS IDEA OF POLISHING IT UP HIS IDEA OF POLISHING IT UP BEFORE THE DECISION MAKERS BEFORE THE DECISION MAKERS WHICH WILL BE THE COUNCIL. WHICH WILL BE THE COUNCIL. GET THIS. GET THIS. LOOK, HERE'S THE THINGS AND THIS LOOK, HERE'S THE THINGS AND THIS IS WHAT you know it's the first time and like I said I that was interesting about the non-residential and so I went oh that's all and then you threw in the assisted livings and I'm like oh boy you know this has really got to get parsed out obviously it's it's it's going to be but I would just encourage you to to make it clear not that you didn't do your best shot with what you had so

Yes, thank you for that feedback. Yeah. A little more background. This formula with single-family, multi-family, and commercial, it's been in place since 99. I'm not aware of any district that has separated commercial to that level, but I would like to try, yeah.

Well, if I may also, when you come back, because then we'll have that one. And if everything goes like it normally goes here, there'll be this one or whatever, but it's better to go, okay, here's what it really is. And so I think your first trip out is just trying to hone it down as tight as you can to what it is. We don't know, you know, or the formula knows or somebody knows. So.

You had mentioned that there was a reduction on if something was sprinkled or not sprinkled. But it's not in any of the proposals that we've seen.

District 10.

District 10. Well, District 10, yes. But you had mentioned a 16% for the Battleground District, that there was a 16%. Correct. Right. But was that in the documentation that was provided? Yes.

No, that was left out of the CFP.

So the challenge then becomes, there may be even a legality challenge because we're making a recommendation to counsel that has to be published and it doesn't include all the information about the costs, right? So that there was no way outside of you telling us there was no way to know that there was a 16% reduction. So that actually kind of I think might violate a law. for public disclosure so some of that stuff gets obviously really important from a you know from that standpoint and again I say the same comments of I mean I like the numbers they drop in a little bit but but a breakdown you know it doesn't look like we'll get it this go but on how we want to look at that. And some of that's a policy decision, like you have a massive distribution center. Do we want to charge them a big fire impact fee or not charge them a big fire impact fee? Maybe we do because they don't produce maybe necessarily the jobs that we want, but that's a policy decision. But from a fire service standpoint, I think it would be valuable information to have for the policymakers. Thanks.

Thank you.

This is Commissioner LeDuc Montgomery. Coming back to the overarching issue of planning for growth as part of this comprehensive plan, I noticed that you mentioned locating a new fire station, 64, to help serve the growth. And then you also identified that some of the existing service items weren't quite meeting the goals of 90%, like the turnout time or first arriving unit. So I was wondering if you could speak how these impact fees, I guess, would address, like if they're solely needed because there's growth or if it's because there's certain service issues already in place and just maybe discuss some of that since we're here talking about future growth planning.

Yeah. At District 6, we have a few geographical challenges and so we currently don't meet all of our benchmarks in certain corners of our district. Those corners include that area of 179th and the Northeastern corner of our district. WE DO HAVE GREAT MUTUAL AID WE DO HAVE GREAT MUTUAL AID AGREEMENTS. AGREEMENTS. WE SHARE A FIRE STATION AT THE WE SHARE A FIRE STATION AT THE WEST PRECINCT OR PUBLIC SAFETY WEST PRECINCT OR PUBLIC SAFETY CENTER ON 179th AND WE SHARE THAT CENTER ON 179th AND WE SHARE THAT FIRE STATION THERE. FIRE STATION THERE. RESPOND ONE THIRD OF THE TIME. RESPOND ONE THIRD OF THE TIME. CLARK RESPONDS TWO THIRDS OF THE CLARK RESPONDS TWO THIRDS OF THE TIME. AS WE EXPERIENCE, THAT'S OUR PRIMARY GROWTH CORRIDOR FOR FIRE DISTRICT 6, ONE OF OUR LARGEST GROWTH AREAS, AND AS WE SEE THE INFILL, WE ARE SEEING THE IMPACT OF THE CALL VOLUME IN THAT AREA, AND SO WE WILL NEED EVENTUALLY A FIRE STATION ON THE EAST SIDE OF I-5 NEAR THE 179th CORRIDOR AT SOME POINT AS GROWTH CONTINUES.

THANK YOU.

So would you say the fees are to help, in addition to future growth, are they picking up, are we using it to kind of backfill our lagging or our underserviced area? Are we backfilling a little bit?

No, we meet our, we have a nine minute standard in that area and we do meet the nine minute standard. We don't meet our best practice, which is a six minute standard in that area, which we would like to meet. And as infill gets there and as we kind of zone that as urban in our response area, which is kind of the majority of the rest of our area, we want to meet that six minute standard. And so as the growth in the infill continues in that area, then we're going to need an additional fire station.

Any other questions or comments or a motion? I'll check that. I got to let the people know.

So for those online, if you are interested in providing comment, please raise your virtual hand or press star free on your phone to let us know you would like to provide comment. Nobody is raising their hand. Nobody in the hearing room who would like to provide comment either, so we will close the public comment for this agenda item as well.

Okay, with the public comment portion closed, I will bring it back for any discussion. Commissioner Barker. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No.

Please.

No, I'm just going to point out in the formula for commercial District 3 versus District 10, if I've got my numbers right, District 3 was looking at 2.5 million square foot of commercial building and in District 3, Sorry, I've got this right. District six, looking at four and a half million square feet. So they're able to divide their same capital by a lot more square footage in their future planning. So I think that's one reason that their number is looking better to us.

Yeah. I'd like to make a motion. for CPZ 2025-00011, Clark County Fire District 6, that I move to follow staff recommendation and approve.

Do we have a second?

Commissioner Halbert, I'll second that motion.

We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please?

Brian Halbert. Aye. Mark Bergfold.

Aye.

Kyle Fadness. No. Ron Barca. Aye. Jack Caron. No. Alicia with Duke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson. Aye. 5-2.

Motion passes with that we'll move to see PZ 2, 0, 2, 5, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0. Wait check that I'm on the wrong one. I want them.

Let me get 10 I just repeated.

Here we go see PZ 2, 0, 2, 5, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, Clark County Fire District 10 capital facilities plan impact fees. Sorry, we're part go ahead.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR CATCHING AGAIN. AND MY PART WILL GET QUICKER AS WE MOVE ALONG HERE. SO DISTRICT 10 FOR CPZ Similar analysis, Criterion A, Criterion B, similar structure of the plan. Staff found that it met all the core criteria to recommend approval. District 10 is THE DISTRICT IN THE NORTH COUNTY SERVES APPROXIMATELY 12,500 PEOPLE, BUT SERVES 85 SQUARE MILES, INCLUDES AMBOY, CHILACHE, FARGER LAKE, GREEN MOUNTAIN, AND VIEW. The primary difference that we've already alluded to in previous discussions and what you'll see as we scroll down to the grid here or the table is that district 10 chose to break out their analysis in a more nuanced way it was their prerogative to do so and and we talked about this a little bit in the work session the they not only broke out between sprinkled and non-sprinkled BUT ALSO FOR THE STANDARD FORMULA APPROACH AND THEN THE GROWTH SHARE METHOD. THE CHIEF BROOKS IS ON THE monitoring and so I'm hoping that he is still there and able to discuss his plan in a little more detail. Beyond that, I just think that I would add that the comments that were just being made about the differences in population and the types of buildings are very very much amplified with District 10. And so you see numbers that are quite a bit different from the other districts, but that's because they have a different demographic and a totally different type of construction that they're seeing. With that, I don't have anything to add other than we also recommend approval with this plan. hearing all the comments that have been made thus far. And I'll answer any questions I can. But we have the two chiefs that have already spoken sitting here listening. And we have Chief Brooks online, I'm hoping.

Chief Brooks, are you online?

Yes, I am.

Oh, good. Thank you for waiting. Appreciate it.

I'll wait until Chief Knorr speaks, too.

OK, thanks. Let's see. Do we have any questions for staff?

This is Commissioner Haroon. Standard method versus growth share method, what's the difference? And I didn't quite understand the difference. And then which one is staff recommended?

I would ask the chief to explain that because they're responsible for the math and the analysis in their plan.

And I would actually prefer to defer to chief drone. He has a far better understanding of this. Our plan was created after there. So we had some opportunity to build on the work that they had done. We chose because our numbers are lower, much more population. It was a little easier to include this. And unfortunately, I'm at a family reunion in Southern Oregon that was planned a year ago. So here I am and don't have access to all the documentation and I can't read the screen without my glasses. And I'm not sure if the glare is worse or my blindness is worse. So bear with me. The different methods are based on the changes in the demographic of our area. And I think that we're much different than the other districts in that until recently, we were essentially an all volunteer district. And as our call volume has grown, we have not been able to keep up with any kind of reasonable response with an all-volunteer staff. So we are changing rapidly. I was hired in 98 to deal with paperwork. We hired our first career full-time firefighters in 2017, so relatively new. And I have hired... three times that many since then. We are in the process of having a new station designed. In the time period that we're looking at, we've had about four new single-family dwellings per year. A few years ago, we had 29 permits in a single year and then as the economy has changed that number has dropped off drastically that's you know the just the the reality of our district there has been no multi-family permits issued and no new commercial buildings built in our district but The difference between growth share and standard, I really can't speak to exactly. I work, like I say, with Chief Drone to calculate those.

CHIEF DRONE, CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT?

YES, THIS IS CHIEF DRONE. SO ALL OF OUR METHODS SAVE DISTRICT 10 IS THE GROWTH SHARE METHOD. SO WHAT THAT DOES WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE RESPONSE BY LAND USE, IT ALSO INCORPORATES THE GROWTH FOR THAT TYPE OF LAND USE, BE IT SINGLE FAMILY, MULTIFAMILY OR COMMERCIAL, INTO THE RESPONSE. THOSE ARE FACTORED IN TOGETHER. to make sure that one isn't paying more than the other should be.

Which one is being recommended?

I can't speak for District 10, but for the rest of the districts, it's the growth share method that you'll see in our CFPs.

Any questions?

Bart Catching here. Chief Brooks, did you have, did you want the entire table adopted as your fees or were you offering an alternative to the Commission.

So we had one of the members of our Board of Commissioners recently built a home. He is retired from federal service. He's had property in the area all his life, built a home, and he was a little shocked by the fact that he was paying school impact fees as someone that is not his kid's his grandkids don't live in our area and don't use our schools. Um, he lives on a private road and he was shocked that he was paying county road fees, impact fees. And so our preference would be to use the less expensive. And we just, are really shocked by the numbers that work out because we're such a small district. And our Board of Commissioners would actually, they wanted to keep the formulas intact in the fees, but they wanted to take the option of reducing our fees by 50%. uh just you know yes the a 15.2 million dollar building these fees are a very very small drop in the bucket of paying for that but you know this is a number that the new resident is going to have to amortize over the life of their mortgage so you know we feel that in the time that they're paying this um We are also going to be collecting bond funds and other fees for them. So, yeah, we would like to take the standard method and then reduce that by half to include to cover those costs. And I've written a letter and provided to staff that states that.

yes that that letter came in uh just this afternoon it was emailed to the planning commission and it's in the record so if we look at the standard method right are we saying those numbers are reduced by half is that correct excuse me the gross share method is reduced by half which one's reduced by half no the the standard method creates a lower fee and we would prefer to do that and then you sent in the letter today, are you reducing the standard method by half?

That is correct.

The grocery method is cheaper.

The title, I'm looking on the standard method.

Are you talking about the non-sprinkler or the sprinkler? 163 versus 168 on the single, 556, oh, that is cheaper on the multi, but you're not going to have very many multifamily units.

We don't have any.

Well, so, okay.

I'm just looking at the screen here.

But I think he's saying there's not really going to be the same type of growth in multifamily or commercial. It's going to be mostly single family. And so it's cheapest for single family under the standard method. And then cut the 163 in half. Is that correct?

Straight 50% is what they are proposing. And that's within their prerogative to do that, is my understanding.

So for clarification, we're talking about the standard method. We cut that in half. And that is what is being asked of us right now.

Yes. Yes. And thank you for talking it through with us. And Chief Brooks, just to clarify, you would want both the option of sprinkled and unsprinkled because of your district's rural wildland and urban interface issues? You want that included? So both sprinkled and non-sprinkled tables?

yes that is accurate okay i just wanted to clarify that for the record sprinklers are huge and i think we should do more as a community to encourage that i put sprinklers in my house myself and i guarantee i did not spend anywhere near twenty thousand dollars but it is worth every penny you know you it's just a worthwhile safety feature for our customers

This is commissioner and chief. I, I hear what you're saying and I. That's a great thing to cut in half as commission members. What I'm seeing is we've got printed. You know, that was presented the standard of the growth, you know, those 4 tables. Tables right there, and that's what the staff used to. Identify the criteria, whether it passed or failed. And we don't have anything number-wise to pass. We have a concept to pass. So I'll look to maybe Carl, Ron.

I think we have a letter that was submitted today that spoke to that. That's correct, right, Mark?

Does it have the numbers on it?

The percentage. The percentage, 50%. Yeah.

Do we want to do the math really quick? I think the first one would round up to $0.82.

Another option, commissioners, this is Bart, is we could do the math and put it in the recommendation. that would be very quickly turned around that would just be mechanical so no discretion from your motion okay i'm just offering that as a option so i just want to make sure that we word it so that it's actually feasible and you know substantiated

Yeah.

So this is Commissioner Heron. We're looking at, well, I'm looking at two things. We have the standard and the growth share. And the numbers, not on the single family, but on the multifamily and the commercial are pretty different between the growth share and the standard method. And then subsequently, even if we're taking those and reducing them by 50%, we're still by far the most expensive of any of the proposals that that we've seen. What's that? No, okay. So, I don't know, I think that's kind of my, I mean, we're still at pretty high numbers. I think one of the challenges, obviously, when you don't have scale, right, you don't have the residences, and then you're in an area, love my District 10 folks, but they're probably a little more anti-tax than my downtown Vancouver crew down here. And so it gets disproportionate where we're seeing, you know, $4,500 impact fees, um, um, or now it'd be 2,400, but I mean the calculation puts it at 4,500, you know? So, um, yeah.

Can you explain why they're higher like that, that much higher?

I think if you go back and look at the formulas, it's solely based on how much you split that up amongst all of the population. It's just we have the same types of needs. We have over the 25 or 20-year life of the comprehensive plan, we have a need for a total of... to additional fire stations and our current main station needs to be replaced. Part of that is, you know, updating it to meet current needs. But about a third of that is attributable with growth. And because you're taking and you're splitting that very large number amongst fewer people, it just creates a larger per person ask.

is the percentage the same what we're asking from the development as the, as the other formulas that we've looked at?

I think his is 33%. Correct me if I'm wrong, Gordon.

I believe it was 31%. Okay. Off the top of my head, you know, it's been a couple of years since we, is it 31% of the, of the total cost or is it 31% of the, Yeah, what what is 31% of the total cost is born by growth? That's off the top of my head.

And then do they rep? Is that a 31% like? And how much are we anticipating the growth? To be is that is that a 10% growth of the population?

It's approximately three and a half percent per year. And that's traditional call volume growth numbers for us since we started tracking it when I started in 1988.

Do we have the copy of that formula? Are you getting right now?

Planning commissioners, this is Oliver Jack. I think on the capital facilities plan that the district submitted,

I believe the Planning Commission has a copy of that.

If you look on page 11 and we can put that up, I think you see the total portion attributed to new growth is 31%. So the shift is correct.

Okay, that makes sense. Any other comments or questions? OK.

I do have a question. I guess I want to come back to you, Jack, about the idea that you were thinking this is a much higher fee. Is that on a per square foot basis that you've decided that this was so high?

Yeah, I mean, we had, if we go back to the fee schedule, I don't know if we can flip that back up. There we go. So under, well, and this is kind of where I get the grow share method, and I wanted a better understanding between the two methods, because they were talking about having the standard method versus the growth share method. And I just didn't understand really what a standard method was versus a growth share. And that was kind of one of my questions. And then why, um, because the growth share method is, is less, um, outside of, outside of the single family, except for the single family, but it's significantly less than commercial significantly less than multifamily. Um, and then, um, So I guess I didn't understand the two different methodologies and then why we would just go to the standard method. And you're having the multifamily, but you're still at 2,400 on a multifamily. And you're still at $1.50, $1.60 a square foot on the commercial buildings. Am I doing my math right? And so yeah, that's it. I guess that's kind of what I was trying to understand. Why we're looking at the standard versus the growth share, I think would be my first question.

Frankly, I was looking at Again, thinking that my district is substantially single family homes. While we do have some people that run home-based businesses, those don't get charged impact fees because they have an existing family home and then they add a business in their barn. And so while they do pay for permit fees, they don't have an impact fee because it's an existing occupancy at the time. And so if you look at it, we just aren't having the new multifamily units, not receiving those kinds of things out there. And so, you know, I we want to do what we can to reduce those costs like you pointed out our district is more conservative than the rest of the county and that's a fact of life and so we want to do what we can to match that you know i personally am lean more conservatively i i fit in out now and that's why i live there And so I understand, I feel their pain. This was something that we discussed at length with our staff. And when we talked through it, we reached begrudging agreement that we should pursue impact fees. The board of commissioners looks at the money and we look at what it's going to cost and we feel compelled to get the people that are moving into the district to pay their fair share. Like I said, Southern Oregon right now, my family has lived in this area since the 1850s. I think that it's important that when new people come into this area, they pay a fair proportion of the infrastructure that my family built. impact fees are a very, very small way to do that.

So Chief, this is Chair Johnson talking. I'm just, for my simple mind, and I actually live up with the same people you live by. So if I take your standard method and cut that in half, that's uh what's that number going to be oh we'll do that we'll do the we'll do the single family homes price per square foot is 82 cents if we cut it in half if i go across and i realize we're a different district but i'm just i'm comparing three other districts at single family residents of 791 uh 992 and 654. and so if i take a unit Price. That's why I was trying to take the unit price and cut that in half. That's like 22,000 and something. Can, can you tell me why those are so different? I understand we're in a different district, but why are they so different?

Because you're spreading that impact amongst far fewer people.

So it is, it is. And it's, I just, so it is that, that much of a difference.

Yes. These numbers worked out. They crunched out through the formulas just based sheerly on math.

Okay. One other question. When you initially did this for us and we went through work session with these numbers and then with your board and then you came back and it's 50% less, how do I come to terms with all of a sudden it's 50% less. Why were you able to do that?

We're not able to. It's not an ability thing. It's just a choice. We look at it and we're trying to think about the impact that it would have been on us and be fair to the new people coming in. They shouldn't bear the sole cost. And they won't. But this gives them a little bit of to become new into the community. And we had talked earlier about the affordable housing. I believe that state code actually addresses that where people that meet the standard for affordable housing and off the top of my head for Clark County that works out to a home, Valued initial sale price at under $450,000 for single family residents. There is language in state code that allows them to get a rebate for that, and they can apply for that within five years of getting the house built.

At the same time, there's a bond up there. We're voting on a bond up there. Is that correct?

That is correct.

And the things that we saw here, was that the fire station we were talking about in the $6 million? Or was that something separate?

Well, if you look at the first line item, when we produced this in 2024, the estimated cost of that station was $12 million. So it has the estimates, the building environment has gone up approximately 20%. Our current estimate is 15.2. That works out to fund that at about 45 cents per thousand.

Okay. Thank you.

And that is purely inflation, our costs of doing business. We've acquired the property over the last 20 years or so. So that's no property acquisition. That is solely the cost of designing and constructing the building.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have any other questions or comments?

Question for staff. Knowing that the law changed and there's allowable ADUs in the rural area, would these impact fees be associated with the building of an ADU?

GOOD QUESTION. I KNOW THAT THE CURRENT COUNTY POLICY IS TO REDUCE ADU COSTS BY 70%. IF THIS FEE WERE TO GO IN AND Addressing that new bill, council have directed that we do update our code post plan adoption. So I don't know when that will go into effect. So when it goes into effect and the council still maintains that 70% reduction for ADU, I know that will be applicable when someone comes in for that.

Thank you. So comment for the commission. Just using the standard method with the 50% reduction that was discussed, looking at the idea that I believe the original number It looks like it was 2,800 square foot home. Just dividing the 163 into the 4569 for the purposes of getting something in baseline. If I use that same 2800 number for fire district three, that makes it 35 cents a square foot compared to the 82. If I look at 10, no, sorry, district six, Um, they're at 28 cents per square foot just to try and keep apples to apples. This is one of the things gentlemen, I was trying to get at from the standpoint of making it easy for people to understand the story. Um, We can go with a lump sum number for everybody or per square foot number for everybody. But I think in the context of comparison, then they're going to want to know what size dwelling are we kind of referring to with the lump sum in reference as an average. So I think based on the location and the difficulty of the terrain, looking at also their call volume, looks like they're very close to 70, 80% of medical for long distances. It has the appearance to me that... the biggest opportunity for service for this particular district is in the concept of those same types of numbers that we discussed with District 6 and the idea of what's the response time. This is the level of service that I think people understand and appreciate in the concept of what are we striving for, what's the goal. So having those numbers available, I think, is super helpful towards the idea of selling the message and what's going on. That all being said, I guess what I see is it's not comparable from the other districts, but perhaps it's relatively fair for the district. And that's my statement on this.

Yeah, this is LaDuke Montgomery. And that's kind of what I've been grappling with is I understand the numbers and population and breaking out, you know, service calls and things. But how do you kind of qualitatively measure, you know, someone out in Chilachi that is facing wildfire risk versus, you know, someone in Vancouver? I don't think that's like more of a risk, right? And then needing to cover mileage. And so I haven't seen clearly how that gets grappled with. other than maybe through the discussion and the specific line item asks of what the money is going to be spent towards to facilitate that type of service. But that is something that in my mind is weighing towards voting to approve the request with the 50% reduction on residential single-family homes because there's just a different level of risk, including waiting for someone to get out to you coming from amboy fortunately i live a block away but many people don't and so it just seems like that's a different type like you're saying mr barka fair for this district but not every district is going to have those same types of issues any other comments um just a clarification so

Is there a unit price? Are we voting on a unit price or a price per square foot? Was the unit price just an example and it's based on a price per square foot because the other districts are unit prices?

We can make the motion to do it however the motion needs to be tailored. The biggest thing I want to make sure was that we read into the motion the 50%.

I understand that.

You could say it however you want.

No, I'm trying to understand what they were proposing. Like, if they're like, a 10,000 square foot house would be $4,500, or a 2,800 square foot house would be $4,500, or they want the 10,000 square foot house to be $12,000. I mean, that's... Well, we don't have a...

a typical house, we do have a price per square foot, which would seem to be more specific and exact. That's my take.

I guess I'm asking the fire chief, what were you guys, what was your thought there? Is it a unit price or a price per square foot?

uh to tell you the truth two years ago is a long time and you know i i truly do not remember what it is based on uh again i would defer to chief drone and see what the way that how that is intended or uh to staff and like i say we we went through this process we started more than two years ago and I really don't know.

This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. I think if you run the numbers like on growth share method, the 4714, and then the price per square foot of 1.68 works out to what a 2,800 square foot home would be. So maybe it's based on a 2,800 square foot home. This is what the total would be, and this is what the price per foot is. Yes.

Right. I guess my clarification, because it's like I'm building a house, you know, I have a barn or my shop and we're a price per square foot. I'm at the counter with county staff and one staff member is telling me it's based on total square footage. Another person is telling me that it's just based on habitable space. So I would like some clarification on what we're recommending.

This is cheap drone. I completely understand. I'm, I'm not exactly sure on, on this plan. I don't think I got to see this particular page. Uh, maybe is the letter more specific that, that he said?

No, that's not the letters is just a 50% reduction. I just don't remember what we did. I believe the 2,800 square foot house is an example. And the formula outputs a price per square foot, but I can't guarantee that that is accurate.

I would in my mind, I would think the impact is based on each individual. Structure like single-family residence would be a unit price Multifamily would be a unit price because you typically boudoir commercial I understand where it's a square footage price because you can have a 500 square foot commercial in a 10,000 100,000 square foot commercial rate So that would make sense to me that there's a price per square foot for commercial and unit prices on the homes but That yeah

And I will, I'm sorry, Chief Drone again here. If it's District 10's intent to be in line with the way the other districts have proposed this, it would be a unit price for single and multifamily and then a per square foot price for commercial?

If you would word your motion to that, I would happily accept it that way.

THIS IS OLIVER. I AGREE WITH THE CHIEF. THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO ADD THAT MOST OF OUR PRICES ARE ON UNIT PRICE. AND WE WILL RECOMMEND ASSUMING THE CHIEF FIRE DISTRICT TEN AGREES THAT WE LEAVE SINGLE FAMILY AND MULTI FAMILY AT THE UNIT PRICE FOR COMMERCIAL GROUP FOR PAY SQUARE FOOTAGE.

WITH A 50% REDUCTION.

YES.

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Any more discussion on this?

I just wanted to clarify. I read the letter to mean a 50% reduction on single family units only. Is that correct?

I would hope that it should be applied to everything.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have a, Oh, Yeah.

I'll put it to the those online if you're interested in providing public comment please raise your virtual hand or press star free on your phone nobody is doing so and there's nobody in the hearing room who is wishing to provide public comment so we will close go ahead and close public comment for this agenda item

Moving forward with the public comment part closed, I would either any more discussion or a motion and a second for Fire District 10 with said changes.

Mr. Chair. Ms. LaDuke Montgomery-Gossett. I move to approve item CPZ2025-A. 00012 fire district number 10 capital facilities plan adopting the district's proposed standard method calculations for fire impact fees both for no sprinkler and with sprinkler on the per unit price for single family homes and multi-family home units and per square foot for commercial buildings with a 50 discount applied to all three of those as calculated in the district submission this is commissioner bark i second that we have a motion in a second jeff can we get a roll call please

Ryan Albert. Aye. Mark Bergfold. Aye. Kyle Thadness. No. Ron Barca. Aye. Jack Caron. No. Alicia LaDuke Montgomery.

Aye.

Carl Johnson.

Aye.

5-2.

Motion passes. So we move on from 10, Fire District 10.

I got all my paperwork mixed up here. We did three.

All right.

This will be Clark. Clark.

Clark out, sorry, thank you. Okay, we're doing next up, Bart, CPZ 2025-00013, Clark Cowlitz Fire Rescue and Capital Facilities Plan. Is there a chief on the line for that?

Hopefully, John Noor is still online, yep.

Thanks, John, thanks for staying.

Yep.

Absolutely. Thank you guys for staying.

SO JUST TAKING OUR SAME APPROACH AS BEFORE, THE STRUCTURE OF THE FINDINGS ARE THE SAME. THE STRUCTURE OF THE DISTRICT PLAN IS VERY SIMILAR TO DISTRICT 6 and this is a Clark Cowlitz to remind you is a the district up for the center Ridgefield Woodland also the Cowlitz Reservation Meadow Glade Charter Oak parts of the fairgrounds Duluth Dollars Corner so a lot of a lot of areas and that serves a population of it is a size of 125 square miles so that's the largest of the districts and um it serves 51 000 at the time of uh writing the the plan um jeff if you could just scroll down to the uh the table on this one THEY TOOK THE SIMPLER APPROACH AS THE OTHER ONES FOR AS DISTRICT THREE AND DISTRICT SIX DID. YOU'LL SEE THE PROPOSED PRICES ARE 654 FOR SINGLE FAMILY, 308 FOR MULTI-FAMILY AND 63 PER SQUARE FOOT FOR COMMERCIAL. SO THE LOWEST OUT OF ALL OF THEM, AGAIN, IT'S JUST WHAT THE FORMULA PRODUCED. With that, I would recommend approval as stated in the staff report and be open for any questions for myself or Chief Knorr.

Do we have any questions for Chief Knorr or staff?

This is Ms. Montgomery. And I was just wondering, because I saw, again, looking at some of the response times and things that are being met now, the performance now compared to the 90% goal aspiration, is the impact fee requested you think sufficient to close the gap between the numbers that we are seeing for current performance and the aspirational goal?

It will help. It will help in that part of it is this is a 20-year, we try to look out 20 years, and every few years we've got to go in and say, okay, where are we at today compared to where we were two years ago or periodically, and then where we're going to be 20 years from now. So, yes, it assists because it helps build fire stations. So in the plan, I propose a need for two fire stations, one east of I-5, one west of I-5. The one on the east side is going to be, uh probably in the 15th year because development will happen more slowly there than it's happening on the west side and one of the things uh to consider also is uh the commissioners want to charge the same fee across the entire area and so we have three cities and a significant portion of unincorporated county in there so the cities have more growth potentially more growth because they're allowed to grow under GMA rules. However, we have a big section at the Southern end of our district that is in the Vancouver urban growth boundary. So it's allowed to develop even though it's an unincorporated County. So we have a lot of development coming along the I-5 along 179th to 219th. And that's a long answer to your short question. Will this help us meet our times? It will help offset the cost of purchasing more fire engines and building two fire stations to be able to meet the times.

This is Commissioner Rund. Did your district cover the tribal lands? Is that correct?

Yeah, it's a sovereign nation. We have no ability to tax them. We have a contract with them. They pay $455,000 a year for fire and emergency medical service response there. And they have gifted us things. They secured a fire engine several years ago through a federal grant that was only open to tribes. And they have gifted us... three ambulances, which was a significant savings that we would have had to purchase, and so a savings to all the taxpayers in the district.

Are you able to get full cost recovery from servicing the tribal lands?

It's very hard to calculate because there is not an assessed value on their properties and in the fire service, we don't really build it. We don't give you a cost per call because there's a lot of things that go into that. Again, it's a negotiation with them because. You take a 14-story hotel on the other side of the freeway, and the county is going to assess the value on that, and we say we'd like to collect $1.50 per thousand, and we know exactly what the bill is. We don't know the value of their hotel because they don't have to disclose it to us. So it's a negotiation, and each year when some new properties and new development comes on, we come to a new price on that.

So I guess the gist of my question is like are – Are these impact fees subsidizing development on the Cowlitz Tribe?

So, no, thank you. Thank you for clarifying. In our contract with the tribe, every year we come back and renegotiate based on any new properties that came on during that time. So they pay a new fee based on the new properties, the new development that happens on their properties. So, for example, they're doing some remodeling inside, even though it's inside the building, it's further development within the structure we'll come back and say that's a new fee so no we don't uh this would not be subsidizing their development yeah i think i think just for clarity i think i think you've answered it but um my fear would be that

we need an extra fire engine to service the Calis tribe. However, the only way to collect that is through our impact fee mechanism on that. So I wanted to make sure that our impact fee calculation isn't being encumbered or colored by additional services provided to the tribe.

It is not.

Any other questions? Let's bring public comment into this. All right.

All right. For those online, if you're interested in providing public comment, please raise your virtual hand or press Start Free on your phone to let us know you would like to provide public comment. Nobody is expressing that they would like to provide public comment. There's nobody in the hearing room. So we'll go ahead and close public comment for the last agenda item.

Once again, with the public part closed, I bring it back for any discussion from the Planning Commission.

This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. I think one thing that Gives me a little pause on this request compared to some of the others is just what is attributable to new growth versus existing deficiencies. But obviously Ridgefield is growing or there's no question that there is growth, but some of the growth projections seem more aggressive or the increase in demand. plus the gap between how they're doing now in calls for service or the different measurements compared to that 90% benchmark was larger than some of the others. But I think I'm still coming down in favor of supporting, providing better service because there's obviously a growth demand in that jurisdiction.

just a brief comment i have no understanding whatsoever how this district ended up with meadow glade how how could something like that happen so the district the district was formed in 1961

The city of Battleground was a very small little spot on the map back then. And the district line basically goes along 179th Avenue over to Salmon Creek and follows Salmon Creek over to Northeast 132nd Street. And then as the city of Battleground annexed different areas away, the district became smaller. But so Metal Glade, I mean, District 3 and District CCFR butted up against each other and the city of Battleground annexed areas away. So that's how Metal Glade is all the way over there. Those boundaries were established 65 years ago.

Let's see if we can fix that.

I would love to see. That's a whole other discussion. But in my opinion, there's too many fire departments and not enough firefighters in this county. So if we could find some way to bring some departments together, have fewer have fewer chiefs and more firefighters, it would serve everyone better.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. I would take a motion, if that's appropriate.

This is Commissioner Bertholdt, and I'd like to make the motion because Chief John, that's my fire department. So yeah, I'd make a motion that we approve the Cal facilities plan for Kellett's, Clark Kellett's Fire Rescue.

Commissioner Halbert, I'd like to second that motion.

Jeff, we have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please?

Ryan Halbert. Aye. Mark Bergfold. Aye. Kyle Fadnas. No. Ron Barca. Aye. Jack Caron. No. Alicia Wood, Duke Montgomery.

Aye.

I. 5-2. MOTION PASSES. MOTION PASSES.

QUICK COMMENT. QUICK COMMENT. CHIEF THRONE, THANK YOU FOR CHIEF THRONE, THANK YOU FOR STAYING AND HEARING EVERYTHING STAYING AND HEARING EVERYTHING BECAUSE IT'S NEW TO US. BECAUSE IT'S NEW TO US. YOU KIND OF GOT THROWN ON THE YOU KIND OF GOT THROWN ON THE BUS. BUS. AND THE OTHER THING IS SOMETIMES AND THE OTHER THING IS SOMETIMES YOU GUYS, I KNOW EVERYONE, YOU YOU GUYS, I KNOW EVERYONE, YOU KNOW, WHEN THE FIRES ARE THERE KNOW, WHEN THE FIRES ARE THERE AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE, BUT THEY DON'T TALK ABOUT BUT THEY DON So thank you for your service as it pertains to what you did tonight, because it was an education too, so I appreciate it. Anytime you guys want to come in. Yeah, anytime, so.

sir could i make one comment uh because i was not i wasn't there so i've got my notebook in front of me i've made extensive notes of a lot of what you were asking and um uh because these plans seem to be updated periodically uh i'm going to work with chief drone chief russell and chief brooks to say how can we uh put together better plans that meet your needs as well as the needs of our community so uh yeah you asked a lot everybody asked a lot of good questions today and uh This is new to us also, and we just want to make sure we're serving the community right, but can show why there's that need and how this works. So thank you for all the feedback you guys gave us today also.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you guys. Commissioner, I just want to say, again, thank you guys. You know, there's nothing like when we call 911 and hearing that siren in the distance. You know, it helps come and it's huge for us. I want you to understand that my no votes aren't a no vote against the fire district. If you put a ballot in front of me for my house taxes for the new fire engine for the thing, I'll say yes. I just don't think this is the right mechanism because I think there's a lot of other implications and I can go policy forever on how impact fees are affecting the cost of affordability. So please don't take that as not a supporter of firefighters, but it's a policy decision.

With that said, is there any unfinished business? Any new business?

Yes, Planning Commissioners, let me ask Jeff to put up the next schedule for you. Just as an update, you may have received individual emails from Jeff about the upcoming work sessions and hearings before the Planning Commission. If I'm not mistaken, I think you have another work session July 30th. And Jose, help me here so that we can see when the hearing begins. I believe your hearing begins August 6th?

Yeah. So we have a work session and a hearing?

Yeah. No, I don't think, Jose. Go ahead. I'm not seeing it very well. Go ahead.

Jose Alvarez, Community Planning. So the hearing begins August 20th. We have a work session July 30th and then August 6th. So materials will be ready 15 days before. So the August 5th and the hearing will be August 20th. And then we have DELIBERATIONS FOR THE THIRD IF WE CAN'T GET THROUGH IN THE ONE EVENING.

OKAY. WELL, THANK YOU GUYS FOR DOING EVERYTHING. YOU'RE KEEPING US STRAIGHT. WE'RE TRYING TO GET THROUGH IT AND I KNOW IT'S BEEN A PUSH AND IT IS WHAT IT IS. YEP. SO TONIGHT WAS A GOOD ONE. WITH THAT SAID, ANYTHING ELSE FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER? ALL RIGHT. WE'RE ADJOURNED.

THANK YOU.