Starting next year, Portland developers will start kicking in more money for city parks than at any time in history. But of course, that money won’t come out of their own pockets. New “system development charges” approved by Portland City Council this morning will be passed on to renters and buyers—a fact that didn’t sit well with two city commissioners in a somewhat fraught 3-2 vote.
The objections to the charges—at a time when council’s been passing updated fee structures for all manner of bureaus without controversy—came for somewhat different reasons.
Commissioner Dan Saltzman, Portland’s housing commissioner, couched his strong opposition in the city’s fast rising housing prices, and faster rising rents.
“I cannot support this,” Saltzman said at this morning’s hearing. “We’re not taxing developers, we’re taxing prospective buyers of housing.” That’s problematic, he said, particularly for the middle income earners beings priced out of the central city. “Portland is unaffordable for Portlanders of all incomes,” Saltzman said, but noted “it seems like the only people talking about middle wage earners these days are the presidential campaigns.”
Plus, he noted, voters just renewed a $68 million bond for the parks bureau, and it stands to get millions more in ongoing funding from next year’s budget, which council will consider this afternoon.
“I don’t see the (funding) crisis,” Saltzman said. “This is the wrong move at the wrong time and therefore I vote no.”
Commissioner Steve Novick cast the second ‘no,’ vote—a move he’d long telegraphed—because of a belief Portland should be looking holistically at updating fees for developers, not passing one-off increases.
Novick noted the updated parks fees—aimed at new developments, and intended to ease strain new residents and employees place on the parks system—are more than mere increases, they fundamentally alter the way parks calculates charges.
The city’s transportation commissioner, Novick said the same changes, applied to system development charges for road improvements, might be untenable. “I don’t think we would make that jump without a long look at housing affordability,” he said.
Novick’s carrying a bit of a grudge here. For much of last year, he went to war for a new monthly fee that would pay to maintain Portland’s streets—eventually putting the issue aside to wait on state legislators. The street fee Novick was angling for (at least one iteration of it) would have asked households for $12 a month. He noted the Parks increase will result in fees of roughly $32 a month for people who buy some new homes.
“I’m puzzled why we should blithely say someone should pay $32 a month for 30 years to build new parks, when in another context $12 caused controversy,” he said. The Portland Bureau of Transportation, like Parks, stands to gain millions in the budget council will consider today. See?
This afternoon, Council is poised to approve the largest General Fund investment in transportation in 30 years. http://t.co/84KNn1ehJi
— Steve Novick (@NovickOR) May 27, 2015
Novick and Saltzman’s objections were rendered moot by Commissioner Amanda Fritz, the parks commissioner who brought the fees to council, as well as Nick Fish, who kicked the changes into gear during his tenure overseeing parks. Mayor Charlie Hales has been beating the drum for a comprehensive look at system development charges—promising a series of hearings once the new budget’s passed—but saw no issue with voting up higher parks fees before that conversation occurs. He pointed to an amendment that wouldn’t put the updated fees into place until July 2016.
“We do have to attend to costs,” Hales said. “We have a year to look at how this set of fees and others mesh together.”
The increased charges are something of a milestone—once they go into effect the parks system says it will be compensated for 100 percent of the costs brought by new development. “New development should pay its own way—no more, no less,” said Fritz, who argues there’s still not enough cash to go around. “This is a fiscally responsible measure.
All told, charges under the new system are expected to raise $552 million in the next two decades. And because the scheme bases fees on the size of development, officials and housing advocates hope it will incentivize smaller homes and units throughout the city.
Developers, meanwhile, hate the plan. Some have even strongly suggested it’s illegal. (Lots of other people really like it.) Don’t be surprised if a lawsuit pops up.