Medical Lake commission pauses fire impact-fee update, flags parks and school fee work

Medical Lake's Planning Commission discussed the city's three impact fees ' fire, parks and schools ' at its June 25 meeting and agreed to pause revising the fire impact fee until Spokane County Fire District 3 (the contracted provider) can develop an appropriate methodology.

"It will not happen this year," Lisa, the city planner, said of the fire fee update, explaining that the district "doesn't have the time to get that done" ahead of the city's budget season and that staff will discontinue collecting the fire impact fee until a future date when methodology is prepared.

Commissioners discussed timing and process. Staff recommended aligning methodology updates with the city's budget cycle, noting October and late summer as good windows for reviewing evidence and adopting fee changes so methodology feeds into budget planning. Lisa said parks fees were updated most recently in 2011 and that the city is now exploring alternate level-of-service approaches, such as ensuring a park within a quarter-mile of each residence, to better capture neighborhood need rather than relying solely on acreage per 1,000 residents.

On schools, staff said the district is updating its facilities plan and does not have sufficient time to produce a revised impact-fee methodology this year; the commission was told the existing school impact fee will remain in place and that the district hopes to update methodology next year.

Next steps: staff will coordinate with the fire district on timing, develop options for parks-level-of-service metrics for future review, and return to the commission when draft methodologies are available or when budget-cycle timing advises adoption.