COM 0911.000 2014-2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Dru Kanuha, Council Chair and Members of the County Council Page 6 Assuming an escrow company would handle the calculation and collection of payment, the Planning Department would need to train escrow company staff and verify their calculations are correct each time a unit/lot sells. It is also unclear who would pay any escrow company fees to administer the collection of fair share payments. The County does not have funds to pay an escrow company to administer the fair share program and does not have complex accounting software to track payments made through the escrow company to Planning. In addition, should the County Council adopt a Unified Impact Fees Ordinance setting forth criteria for imposition of exactions of the assessment of impact fees, the escrow account would need to be closed and the remaining fees not paid converted to an impact fee. Finally, fair share funds are reported annually to the County Council and are appropriated by the departments for capital improvements. The escrow company would need to prepare regular reports to Planning Department staff who manage the Fair Share Annual Report and respond to requests for availability of funds for capital projects. The current fair share payment program is the most efficient way for the County to collect these payments with the minimum amount of staff time and resources. Implementing the requested change in fair share payment collection would require additional staff resources that would cost the County more money, but since the fair share payment amount would not increase, there would be no benefit to the County and its taxpayers who fund staff positions. For these reasons, the Planning Director strongly recommends forwarding an unfavorable recommendation to the County Council to amend Condition V. Based on the above findings, the Planning Director recommends that the Planning Commission for to the County Council a favorable recommendation to amend Conditions B and J and an unfavorable recommendation to amend Condition V of Ordinance No. 04-56. The accompanying draft bill reflecting the recommended amendments is provided for your consideration. In addition, the Planning Director recommends that existing conditions in the ordinance be revised to reflect the current standard language for conditions of approval and housekeeping revisions. (Material to be deleted is bracketed and struck through and material to be added is underscored).