Kent City Council determines and finds as follows:
(a) In order to address new population growth and development activity, maintain park standards, and continue to promote and protect the public’s health and safety, the City of Kent supports the expansion, preservation, and maintenance of its public parks, trails, open spaces, and recreational facilities, collectively known as “public park facilities.”
(b) The City of Kent has not secured other financial commitments or sources sufficient to serve new population growth and development activity with public park facilities at the level of service established by the City.
(c) The imposition of park impact fees is a preferred method of ensuring that:
(1) Adequate public park facilities are available to serve population growth and development.
(2) New development that generates population growth pays a proportionate share of the cost of new public park facilities to align with such growth.
(d) Such payments may be used to address deficiencies in public park facilities that are reasonably related to the population growth and development.
(e) Accurate and equitable procedures for measuring the impact of new population growth and development activity on public park facilities, establishing the existing level of service provided by such public park facilities, and determining the cost to maintain the existing level of service have been developed by the City in its most currently adopted Parks & Recreation Department comprehensive planning effort. The fee schedule and other procedures established by this chapter are based upon those planning studies.
(f) In developing the schedule of park impact fees contained in this chapter, consideration has been given to taxes which have or will be paid by the new development activity into the City’s general fund and earmarked for the general maintenance and operations of all City services.
(g) The adoption of the park impact fee ordinance codified in this chapter is necessary for the support of City government and its institutions.
(h) The provisions of this chapter and its adoption fulfill an urgent need to assess new development activities with their proportionate share of public park facility impacts; to minimize any potential disruption to the development activity; and to ensure equitable treatment of all development activities subject to the assignment of a park impact fee.
Future adjustment of the park impact fee schedule, if any, should be based on the findings in subsections (a) through (h) of this section.
(Ord. 2022-031. Passed 4-20-22.)