County Pays Park Fees Back To Developers Homeowners Unlikely To See Cash Or Improved Parks

Crumbling pools and rusting swings didn’t stop Spokane County commissioners from refunding $84,000 that builders reluctantly paid to help the county’s park system.

It’s unclear whether the people who paid most of the money - home buyers - will get any of it back. The county sent checks to developers, who will decide whether to pass on refunds to their customers.

“I don’t believe that I ever got a check in the mail,” said Jeff Larsen, who bought his Spokane Valley home last year from Homestead Construction. “I would have remembered that.”

For two years, the county collected money for 103 new house lots and one apartment complex approved in fast-growing areas such as the Valley and North Side suburbs.

Supporters say the fees, which ranged from $350 for an apartment unit to $500 for a house, help offset the strain newcomers add to the parks system.

Responding to complaints from developers, as well as their own misgivings about the program, commissioners last year told county accountants to return the money with interest.

The checks were mailed this month.

The county shouldn’t collect the money since it doesn’t have a park plan, said Commissioner Steve Hasson. Even when a plan is adopted, he won’t support impact fees, which he calls “divisional to society.”

“The impact fee effectively says, ‘I’ve got mine, now you get yours,”’ said Hasson, a former contractor, who voted no when then-Commissioners Skip Chilberg and Pat Mummey approved the fees.

Hasson, Commissioner Phil Harris and former Commissioner George Marlton rescinded the fees in September. Marlton since has been replaced by John Roskelley, who favors impact fees for parks.

Developers argue that impact fees are unfair, since many home buyers have lived in the county - and paid taxes toward its parks - for years.

Developers typically add impact fees to the price of a home - a point builders and real estate agents make whenever impact fees are debated.

“We’re opposed to impact fees in general,” said Al Haslebacher, executive director of the Spokane Home Builders Association. “They’re adverse to home affordability.”

Haslebacher said he hasn’t given much thought to whether his members should pass on their rebates to their customers.

“Without looking into it, my response is, that’s not an appropriate action” because developers already are burdened with so many costs, he said.

The biggest rebate check went to builders of Cedar Creek Village, a North Side apartment complex. The smallest checks, for $400 or $500, went to small contractors or homeowners who subdivided their land for the house or mobile home they now occupy.

Officials for Homestead Construction and other house builders that received the biggest rebates could not be reached for comment Friday.

Craig Condron, owner and president of Condron Construction, said he doesn’t owe anything to the people who bought four Mead houses he built. Condron got a refund of $2,100.

Condron said the parks fees came out of his profits, not from his customers. He didn’t pass on the cost, he said, because other developers built similar houses on neighboring lots platted before the county started charging the fees.

He said the extra $500 would have made his houses - which sell for $125,000 or less - uncompetitive in the market of entry-level homes.

Although he opposes impact fees, Commissioner Hasson said there’s no denying county parks are in dire straits. The county spends about 1 percent of its budget on pools, compared with 8 percent in the city of Spokane.

In recent years, playground equipment was removed from several parks because the swings and slides were in such poor shape they were dangerous. The county could not afford to replace many of them.

The county in 1993 spent $150,000 on repairs to keep three of its four pools open. But architects warned the fix would only last about five years, and that the pools are reaching the end of their lives.

So far, there’s no plan - and no money - to replace the pools.

Spokane County is not the first local government to end an impact fee.

The Mead School District stopped collecting its $700 fee for new houses built inside its boundaries. The money wasn’t worth “the tremendous administrative burden,” Alan Swanson, Mead’s assistant superintendent, said earlier this year.

The district had already spent the $30,000 it collected in three years and did not offer refunds.

Idaho courts last year ordered Coeur d’Alene and other Kootenai County communities to refund impact fees, saying the collections weren’t legal. The Idaho Legislature later changed the law, making impact fees legal.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TAKE IT BACK Spokane County has abolished its impact fees for parks, returning $84,194 collected to help build new parks and improve existing ones. Starting in 1994 in fast-growing areas, the county collected $350 for each apartment unit, $400 for mobile homes and $500 for houses. Refunds included interest. Largest refunds: Cedar Creek Village (apartments): $34,631.23 Homestead Construction: $12,989.25 Greer Construction Inc.: $5,213.72 Jim Mahar Homes: $3,587.42 Hultquist Construction: $2,588.09 Condron Construction: $2,101.28 BML Corp.: $1,569.39 Robert Numata: $1,072.78 Jay Arrington: $1,039.43 Bob Guthrie: $1,038.46 Marsh Construction: $1,025.07