Clark County Planning Commission

0:00 (upbeat music) - I'd like to call the side group public hearing order for Thursday, July 16th, 2026. My name is Carl Johnson and I'm the chairman of the Clark County Planning Commission. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and analyze comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, and other land-related issues. We follow a public process, including holding hearings, during which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information. In legislative matters, the role of the Planning Commission is advisory. The County Council will hold separate hearings,

0:58 consider our recommendation, and then they will make a final determination. The Planning Commission will conduct a public hearing tonight and take testimony. All public comments received before tonight's hearing have been sent to the PC members and entered into the public record. County staff will first present, then the Planning Commission can ask questions. Next, we will invite the applicants to speak, if there is one. Then, members of the public who wish to provide testimony. When we get to the public comment portion of our agenda, we'll provide more information on how to participate, both virtually and in person. However, if you're in person tonight and wish to provide comment on the hearing agenda item, please sign up via the sign-up sheets in the back of the room. During public testimony, you will be given three minutes to speak and marks should be directed to the Planning Commission only. Please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided. The conclusion of the public testimony,

1:58 staff and the applicant may respond to the comments and the public portion of the hearing will then be closed. The Planning Commission will then deliberate and make recommendations to the County Council. For both virtual and in-person members of the Planning Commission and staff, please ensure that your microphones are muted unless you are speaking. Planning Commissioners, when you make a motion and/or second a motion, please state your name for the court reporter. Conflicts of interest. Do any of the Planning Commissioners have any conflicts of interest related to the night's hearing? Hearing none, we will proceed with a roll call and an introduction of any guests. Jeff, can I get a roll call, please? - Brian Halbert. - Here. - Mark Bergfold. - Here. - Kyle Fadness. - Here. - Ron Barca. - Here. - Jack Caroon. - Here. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery.

2:57 - Here. - Carl Johnson. - Here. Next, we'll need approval for the agenda for July 16th, 2026. Can we get a motion and a second, please? - Commissioner Halbert, I recommend that we approve the agenda for July 16th, 2026. - If Commissioner Bergfold, I'll second that. - We have a motion. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfold. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - Aye. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Caroon. - Aye. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - 7-0. - Motion passes. We're looking for approval for minutes for May 21st, 2026. Can I get a motion and a second, please?

3:50 - Commissioner Fadness, I move to approve the minutes for July 16th. - Check that, that's May 21st. - Sorry about that, yep, May 21st. - Commissioner Barca. - I second the motion. - We have a motion and a second. Can we please get a roll call, Jeff? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfold. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - Aye. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Caroon. - Aye. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - 7-0. - Motion passes. At this time, this is communications from the public. These are items that are not listed on the agenda. Is there anybody at this time, either online or in the room, that would like to comment on something that is not on the agenda?

4:50 - Should I provide online instructions? - Yeah, go ahead with that, Jeff. - For attendees using their computer or WebEx application, if you would like to speak, please use the raise hand icon. For attendees using the telephone audio only option, press star three on your phone's number panel to raise your hand. For those in person that would like to provide comment, please raise your hand. Once acknowledged, you may come to the microphone towards the front of the room. Public comments are limited to three minutes per person in order to accommodate all speakers. Again, this portion of tonight's hearing is only for items not listed on tonight's agenda. We will begin with those in the hearing room who would like to make a general comment. Please raise your hand and the chair will call on you to come up to the front of, to the microphone. Please provide your first and last name for the court reporter. No raised hands? We will now call on those people on WebEx or the phone that have raised their hand.

5:49 For those people using the telephone option, press star six on your phone's number panel to unmute yourself when it is your turn to speak. No one raising their hand on line either. - Okay, with that said, we'll now proceed to the public hearing section. Reminders to the public. If you're providing public testimony in person, please sign up on the sheet in the back of the room. If you're joining remotely, once again, we will provide you instructions at the appropriate time. So first up is CPZ 202500004, Evergreen School District, Capital Facilities Plan. Amy Wooten is our presenter. Amy? Yes? - Good evening, Planning Commission members. For the record, my name is Oliver Ojeko, Community Planning Director. Before our staff gives the presentation, I would like

6:46 to just make a very quick comment. We have five school districts tonight, and also I believe four fire districts, Capital Facilities Plan, and the attendant impact fees associated with each of the Capital Facilities Plan. There are some school districts that is not before you or are not submitting. Their Capital Facilities Plan was reviewed, I believe, two years ago or so, and their six-year Capital Facilities Plan is still good. So we are going to be focusing on these five, and your recommendation will be forwarded on to the council.

7:43 They may hold the hearing to consider your recommendation prior to the adoption of the plan, or this will all be included in the package for their final hearing on the 2025 to 2045 periodic plan update. With me this evening is Miss Rebecca Ward, Parliamenting our legal counsel, and we have Jose Alvarez, Land Use Program Manager and staff, so I will turn it over to Amy Woodland, who will be giving the presentation, but we are here to answer any question that you may have. Thank you.

8:33 - Oh, our monitors, Jeff, aren't working up here. Oh, okay, all right, thank you. Okay, Amy, go ahead. - Good evening, council members. - One second, Amy, hold on.

9:03 There we go, we got 'em here. Go ahead, Amy, we can start. - Good evening, commission members. For the record, my name is Amy Wooten with Community Planning. I'm joined by Oliver Orzaco, as he's already introduced himself this evening, and we will be presenting the school district capital facilities plans and impact fee updates for you this evening. Next screen. Thank you. Each school district's proposal is considered

10:03 a separate docket item that requires separate deliberation and voting. We plan to follow the order on the agenda as listed on this slide. For each hearing, staff's presentation will focus on whether or not the school's CFP meets the criteria outlined in county code. Staff will defer background information about what is happening in each school district with regards to student enrollment, facility needs, and financing mechanism decisions to the school districts. So after staff's presentation, the school district will have an opportunity to summarize what is going on in their district. We'll be able to answer specific questions you have, such as some items you may have raised during the recent work session. So staff will focus on codified criteria. The school districts can provide more context about what is happening within each district. Next slide.

11:00 Next, oh great, thank you, Jeff. This table is being provided for reference. You saw it at the work session last week. It hasn't changed. It summarizes the existing and proposed impact fee amounts for each of the school districts with separate amounts for single family and multifamily dwellings. You may notice a wide range in the proposed fee amounts on this slide. Each district has different facility needs over the next six years, and each district's capital facilities plan provides the background information and context behind these numbers. Next slide. This slide is being shared for reference only so that you can see impact fee amounts for all districts in the county. We will not be discussing these school district CFPs today as they are not being updated. Next slide, please. So we're starting our

11:58 hearings tonight with Evergreen School District. It's docket CPZ 2025-0004 and is pertaining to Evergreen School District Capital Facilities Plan 2026 through 2022. The Evergreen School District Board of Directors has modified the capital facilities plan. This district is requesting that Clark County formally adopt the plan by reference in the 20-year Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan and collect the recommended school impact fees. The Growth Management Act enables school districts to develop capital facilities plans and impact fee programs for new residential developments in order to offset the impacts of growth on school facilities. It further requires these plans and programs be reviewed and approved as part of the county and city comprehensive plans in which the school district is based. The minimum requirements of school district's

12:58 capital facilities plan are defined in the Growth Management Act and Clark County Code. A school district requesting impact fees shall submit to the county and update at least every four years a capital facilities plan adopted by the school board and consisting of the following elements. A standards of service description, an inventory of existing facilities, a forecast of future needs, proposed locations and capacities of expanded or new facilities, a six-year financing plans, and application of the impact fee formula set out in Clark County Code section 40.620.040. As a reminder, the financing plan for school capital facilities plans typically includes multiple funding sources. Depending on district eligibility, districts pay for a portion of the cost of capital facilities with funds provided by the state of Washington

13:55 through the Common School Construction Fund. The remaining capital expenses must be raised locally, which is typically done through the passage of bond levies, which raise the property taxes of all residential property owners within a particular district, and/or impact fees which only apply to new residential construction within the district. Next slide.

14:21 There are two criterion staff used to evaluate a school district's CFP. Criterion A is that in updating capital facilities plans, policies, and procedures, the county must determine that these updates are consistent with applicable provisions of the GMA and WAC, and policies and implementation measures of the comprehensive plan, and in conformance with purposes and intent of the applicable interjurisdictional agreements. The staff report that you received in your packet walks through the details of the applicable provisions of this criterion. In summary, staff found the CFP includes the required elements and information as mandated in GMA and the Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Staff found the future needs outlined in the CFP are consistent with GMA, and the 2025 to 2040 comprehensive plan.

15:20 Staff found the financing plan outlined in the CFP meets criterion A because the financing plan has declared that based on enrollment forecast, existing capacity, and the district's educational standards, there is no present need for new capital facilities. Therefore, the plan proposes impact fees of zero dollars. Staff found the financing plan is consistent with GMA, impact fee related state statutes, and the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive growth management plan. Based on these findings, staff concluded the proposal meets criterion A. Next slide. Criterion B relates to reviewing school CFPs in accordance with the provisions of Clark County Code, section 40.620.030B, where the code specifies the Planning Commission shall consider whether the district's forecasting system

16:20 for enrollment projections appears reasonable and reliable, whether the anticipated level of state and voter approved funding appears reasonable and historically reliable, whether the standard of service set by the district is reasonably consistent with standards set by other school districts in communities of similar socioeconomic profile, and whether the district appropriately applied the formula set out in Clark County Code 40.620.040. The staff report walks through the findings on each of these items and found that the district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable based on the approach outlined in the CFP. Staff found the standard of service for the district is consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts. Staff also found that the CFP proposes no new impact fees and therefore the application of the impact fee formula

17:16 in Clark County Code 40.620.040 is not applicable. Based on these findings, staff concluded the proposal met criterion B. Next slide, please. The Evergreen School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on June 10th of 2025. A copy of the updated plan with impact fee calculations and resolution number 25-06 were provided in your hearing materials as exhibits B and A respectively. The School District Board of Directors recommends that Clark County formally adopt the plan and collect impact fees as indicated on the screen, which is $0 for single family, $0 for multifamily, and $0 for ADUs. Public comments were received on this application,

18:13 copies of which were in your hearing materials. And as outlined in the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal meeting all criteria. That concludes staff presentation on this request, and we're available to answer questions. And we also have representatives from the School District if you have questions for them. - Okay, questions for staff on Evergreen, we're just Evergreen Hall. - This is Commissioner Barca. Going through the presentation, I noticed that they are very similar from school district to school district on the presentation. I didn't see any of the presentations for any of the school districts that you disagreed with

19:12 or denied that they should go forward. I'm wondering why we're going through them individually in this fashion, as opposed to just working out the aspect of whether we agree or disagree with the proposals. Is there a particular reason? 'Cause I guess, Amy, it's a very good presentation, but I believe they're all going to be very, very similar. And I don't know that we need to go through that minutia with it unless there's something that you believe we should be deliberating specifically on. So I guess that's my question for you. Is there something specific in this presentation that you desire us to deliberate specifically, individually, as opposed to the cluster that we have been presented? - Hi, this is Oliver Ojiako.

20:11 The presentation will be similar as you observed, Commissioner Ron Baker. I think you will see that there is variation based on the needs of each of the school district and changes as a result to the applicable impact fees. So it will be proper and appropriate to review them individually, make a motion to accept what each of the school district board recommended. If you disagree, you can make a different findings and we will take that on to the council. That's why we are looking at them individually because each one school district is different

21:07 and you could see the relative impact of each of the school district and their needs. I don't wanna jump, but you can see how can same for example, the existing fee and what they are proposing and what the change is. And similarly, the center. So each one, you will see a difference based on the adopted capital facilities plan and their need. The reason I'm raising that is because each district is different and the ability to pass bond or levy also impacts how they look at their capital facilities and need and if you decide to look at them all

22:05 and recommended approval, we will accept that, but I think it will be preferable that you look at them individually. Ask question, we have representative of the school district here. So there may be particular question to a particular district and why the difference in the assessment of the impact fees. They're using the same formula. It's not different, but they're arriving at different conclusions based on whether they have the capacity. In the case of Evergreen for example, I'm not speaking for them and believe that Lee and Bremer will, but I know that they have been successful in passing bond and levies. They've used that to modernize almost majority of their school. Therefore, they have the capacity.

23:04 So that's the reason why they're not asking for increase in their impact fee using the formula when the need is in there. So because they have the capacity to accommodate any future growth, you will recall Commissioner Rambach a few years ago, each of the school district was like a mad rush for potables. Some schools have been very successful in passing bond and we have still some state funding issues when it comes to education. I don't wanna belabor the effort, but it's on you how you want to proceed. Staff prefer that you look at them individually because there are differences among the school districts. - Okay, I understand your explanation.

24:02 I just, without the thought process that the staff recommendation is no different for each one, regardless of how much they're asking for or not asking for, obviously the formula as applied did not raise any red flags for you. And so I guess I would put it to the commissioners at least in the context of Evergreen and Washougal where there's zero proposed fees. I'd like to make a motion that we just go ahead and take those off of the docket and be done with them. And then we can look at the other individual ones as the desire of the council or commission is. - So when you say take them off the docket, you mean vote for them? - Vote for them and be done with it, yeah. - We have a motion, it says voting for Evergreen, which has a zero proposed fee and Washougal, is that correct? - That's correct. - Both single and multiple family.

25:06 - I think we have a, uh-oh. - So this is Jose Alvarez, community planning. As it's a public hearing, you need to have public testimony. So you have to go through that for each one individually. That's why we set them up this way. - Okay, so we'll start again. Is there any more questions for Evergreen? Okay, with that said, we're now public comment. Okay, let me get this thing under control here. So now that we're done with staff questions, bring it back to us and now I'll go to public comment. Go ahead, I'm sorry. - I'm sorry to jump again. Leanne Bremer, representing all the school districts this evening. I might suggest that the way I saw it working, I do think you need to have a decision

26:04 on each plan individually. I don't really think you need the same presentation every five times. So you can open up each hearing item individually. Maybe point out the impact fee requests because they are different for each one except for Evergreen and Washougal and then take public testimony and then vote. It might speed it up a little bit, but I don't think because the staff did such a thorough job in their staff report going through each of the criteria for the CFP that they need to repeat that every time. That's the suggestion. - Thank you. - And I don't wanna repeat myself five times either. So what I will say for Evergreen school district is similarly what I would say for the other school districts is that we're following the format of previous capital facilities plans that the county has adopted since the mid 90s.

27:03 And we're applying the same formula and we are, so it's the same information but updated. And staff has confirmed that we meet the criteria and I agree. For Evergreen specifically, as been said, they have capacity in their current schools. They've done a professional enrollment forecast and found that their existing capacity can handle growth in the next six years. So that is why they cannot collect impact fees. We cannot demonstrate that new growth and development will have an impact on school facilities. So that is why their fee will be going to zero. And the other thing I wanted to say is, there was a question at the work session about the ratio between public funding and impact fees. I provided that information into the record. Hope you all saw that. And if you have questions on that, I'm happy to answer.

28:00 And then we also answered a question that came about through public comment on whether, why aren't the other school districts updating their plans during this year? And we addressed that to say that we're really, the four year update is based on when the county adopted the plan, not when the school districts adopted or their board made a recommendation. Because the board's recommendation on their CFP is just that, just like your recommendation to the council. It's not a final action. It can change between the time the board makes a recommendation and the county adopts the plan. So we consider the county's adoption the date they become effective and when impact fees are adjusted by code. So that is the date we measure four years from. And so for the other districts not before you tonight, they're coming back to you next year. In fact, all the districts will have to come back to you next year because there has been a change

28:59 in state law that requires impact fees to be scaled to the size of the dwelling. And the county has to do that for their impact fees. We have to do that for our impact fees. So we're coming back next year anyway. - Yeah, will you do me a favor? I'm gonna consider that you are the applicant's presenter, which just fixes it here. Would you just stay up here and then what I'll do right now is I'm gonna now actually open the hearing for public testimony. Jeff, will you go through this field here and then how we'll address if there's anybody else online or here officially now with asked questions. Sorry for the confusion. Jeff. - Please note, to be a party of record, you must submit written testimony before, during, or prior to the close of tonight's hearing or provide oral testimony at the public hearing

29:57 or request in writing to be a party of record. If written comments were received prior to July 16th, 2026, they were submitted to the Planning Commission members and posted on the Planning Commission website. Tonight's hearing is being transcribed by a court reporter, so please spell your first and last name and speak slowly. Public comment time is limited to three minutes. We will now begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone. Please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your telephone to let us know you would like to provide comment. For those using the telephone options, press star six on your phone to unmute yourself when it is your turn to speak. Anybody? Okay, we will now begin with participants in the hearing room. Was anybody signed up to speak? - Leanne, Leanne is the only one. (laughing) Sorry, Leanne was the only one. - That concludes public comment.

30:54 Okay, so hearing no public comment, either online or in the room, I'll bring it back now to the commissioners, and we're talking about Evergreen, and I think how we'll shrink these for you is we'll try to just, that first part of these, you know, that's the same, they're redundant, but if you get to the very end of these, the meat of it, we'll ask that information be put forward on each one of these since we have to go through each one of them. Hopefully you don't have to go through that first part unless somebody officially tells me we have to go through that first part. So if we can just take the proposal, the report findings, and the staff recommendation on each of those, I think that'll expedite this. Is that good? And then Leanne, if we have any questions, 'cause I do have some questions on, like the differences and stuff like that. So, staff, is there any response to the testimony that I've heard? Any questions on Evergreen? Advocate, there's none.

31:50 Okay, so with that said, back to us for deliberations. Any deliberations? Any talk between us? Okay, with Evergreen, considering that, I'll take a motion. - This is Ron Barca. I'd like to make a motion to approve the Evergreen proposed impact fees as recommended by staff. - Commissioner Halbert, I second that motion. - We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can you give us a roll call, please? - Ryan Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfeld. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - Aye. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Haroon. - Aye. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Seven, zero. - Motion passes. Up next is CPZ 20250005, Hawkinson School District Capital Facilities Plan. Amy, I'm looking at page 12. Hopefully that's where we're at.

32:49 - Okay, if you could forward the slides for me. We're talking about Hawkinson. And how about if we go to, we're considering Hawkinson CFP against the same criteria that we discussed for Evergreen.

33:19 They did meet criterion A, as we found that their future needs and facility locations would be consistent. Switch to the next slide, please, Jeff. Criterion B was found to meet, be met with this CFP. The standard of service for the district is consistent with standard of service for other Clark County School District. And it provided district enrollment projections and facility information that staff found met criterion B. They proposed impact fees based on those findings that staff found met all criteria.

34:17 And they are requesting $15,174 and 54 cents for single-family dwellings and $1,720 and 12 cents for multifamily dwellings. Public comment, the same public comment letter was submitted for this application that was submitted for Evergreen. Received the same response from the district's representative. And so our recommendation, based on the CFP that we received, is approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees. - Is there any question for staff on Hawkinson School District? - This is Commissioner Heron. At our work session, I had asked specifically that you guys could come and show us the formula and calculation and the math behind that and how that works.

35:17 So I had a better understanding of how that number is derived. So the letter that we got from Mann, which is great, it seems, yeah, so I'm just trying to understand how that works and if it's, when we talk about proportionality, I would like to understand, like if you have 1,000 students, 100 of those students are attributed to new growth, you build a new facility for the 1,000 students, the proportionality is set based on the new growth to 100 students and then what percentage of that is supposed to be covered by impact fees?

36:14 'Cause it wouldn't be established on the entire project. It was just replacement. So I guess my, is that correct? Okay. - Is that working? Okay. - Yes, so again, Leanne Bremer representing Hawkinson School District. And I think I can answer your question. In particular, this is a good example to walk through the formula and I don't know if we have the formula itself on a slide, but I'll do my best to do it without that in front of us. So this Hawkinson School District's in dire need of a new elementary school. They're basically at capacity at their existing school. So their plan plans for a brand new elementary school

37:13 and these days, new schools cost a lot of money and in this case, $50 million. So what we do to make sure that the impact fee is that new development's paying a proportionate share of that $50 million school is we determine how much of that capacity of that new school, which is 500 students, is attributable to the growth we expect over the next six years. And in this case, it's 384 students is the growth that we'll expect in that six year period. So we divide that number into the $50 million cost to come up with a cost of the facility attributable to growth. So that's your top line number. And then we divide that by the number of students attributable to growth to come up with the cost per student number. And then the formula just takes you right through that.

38:11 And then we subtract from that number money that we'll get from the state match and any taxes that will go towards the new school to come up with the fee that's charged to new development. So we do start with a number, a cost that is scaled to what we need to serve the new growth, not just everybody who will be going to that school. - So just work with me here. So that's just for my understanding here. So $50 million school. - Yeah. - I know it's like turning into Portableville a little bit out there. - Yeah. - And how many students will that? - It'll be 500 students will fit in that school. - So 500 students. - 384 from growth. - Okay. - And so it's about a $39 million school for the growth portion. - Okay.

39:10 - And that's what gets plugged into the formula, not the full 50 million. - Right. So it's, what is that about 100,000 per student? - Yeah. - Is that right? - I have it right here. - If you have 50 million it's-- - Yeah, good math, 101,000 per student. And then you subtract out. - Okay. And then, so you times that by the 365, right? So 36 million attributed to new growth. - 39 million. - And then that proportion of that 36 million, what is the percentage that you're looking to capture? So it's at, if it's a $17,000 impact fee, right? Something like that? What is that? - 16,000. - Or 16,000, so we're capturing, of that 100,000 just for simple, I know we can, you know, get minutiae. So we're capturing about 15% of that impact in that per student. - Yes. - And then the other thing. Okay. 'Cause it was a little different.

40:10 Like, 'cause what you had proposed, like on your letter was different. It was like 4%. - Yeah, I didn't do it quite that way. I took the full cost of the facility and then how much was going to be financed with public funding and how much with impact fees. But this is a slight variation on your, what I put in. I'm a simpleton. (laughing) - No, but you have it right. So it really is $100,000 per student to build that school. - To build a school. - Yeah. - And, but we're not charging a $100,000 impact fee 'cause we can't. And so it's, and the other thing I forgot to mention is there's a big part of the formula is the student generation rate. So it's not four students per house. It's some percent, it's based on data and the-- - Some houses will have kids, some won't. - That's right. So there's an average student generation factor.

41:07 And that really brings down that $100,000 number when you apply that. - And that's the formula that's basically applied across the board, right? - It hasn't changed in 30 years. - Okay, that helps me a tremendous amount. Thank you. - Great explanation. Any other questions for staff? - This is Commissioner Broekfold. Looking at that, I would have expected single family to be a lower rate than multifamily, especially with an elementary school because you have young families in apartments that can't afford the house, so they've got more kids. So this appears to be in my gut feel backwards, but I'm sure there's a formula reason for that. Can you explain that? - Yes. Well, and you will find that when we get to Woodland, that's exactly what you see because the, according to the demographics there, there are more students generated out of the multifamily units. Hawkinson is a little hard because they don't have that many apartments.

42:06 And so that's why you see, I think if you saw more apartments, you'd see a higher fee, but it's just the math. That's just the way it works out because they have so few units. - Okay, thank you.

42:25 - This is Commissioner Fadness. Lynn, could you speak on how the estimated construction cost for the school was calculated? Because looking at some of the other capital facilities plans you see with La Center, they're about 25 million for 450 students, I believe. And Woodland was about 32 million for 400 students. So it seems like the estimated cost for the school is quite a bit higher than the other districts. - Yeah, that's a good question. We rely on the district facilities folks to come up with those numbers. And for Hawkinson, fortunately, or unfortunately, they had to calculate that amount for their new school recently for a bond measure that did not pass. So this was just based on their planned school and how much it costs.

43:23 So it was just done internally at the school district is how they come up with those costs. And I expect there's, I mean, not every elementary school's the same. And so there's just, there's going to be variations. But I understand your question 'cause it looks like a big difference between them. - Okay, thank you. - So just to, this is Commissioner Renn, just to clarify that, 'cause I'd missed that on the cost differences. So we're looking at anywhere between like 100, the Hawkinson is proposing almost between 70 and 100% more than the other school districts for the same capacity for kids when they have the exact same building costs, exact same requirements as any of the other school districts 'cause that's pretty dramatic and it's something we certainly need to look at. - Well, and if we look at Woodland, they're building a 400 capacity school for 28.8 million.

44:21 So it's a 100 student difference there. - Yeah. - Yeah, I know, I know, I know. - I'm a construction guy. - I know. (laughing) - It seems, yeah, so I would, I mean, well, one of my recommendations to count was like that we get some clarity on numbers. - I think that's an excellent question. So for, definitely before we go to council, we'll pin that down. - Yeah.

44:52 - Any other questions for staff or land? Okay, with that said, I'll bring it back to us. Any discussion? - Commissioner Halbert, hey, Jack, I'd maybe throw out that land is different and jurisdictions, the infrastructure is substantially different than every jurisdiction. Their ability to connect to public sewer may be a mile away, whereas Woodland is just around the corner. So you need to start looking at the infrastructure costs, even though the building costs may be the same, but land and utilities are substantially different. - Commissioner Johnson, I do think it would be interesting. You said they're coming back in a year. Is that correct for them? - Yes, for all the districts collecting impact fees, they have to recalculate them. - So that would be a great question to ask them is that yes, there are gonna be differences in costs,

45:50 obviously, but where's that coming? 'Cause that really was my question too. Like we're bringing this data in and we're assuming that good faith that that is the correct data, but we do have this thing here that I did the same thing and I went like that. So my question was next time this comes before us, that maybe that would be a little bit clearer. 'Cause I think you've explained this to me about five times in the past years, and I still don't, well, I just learned something. So I don't know, that's just something off the top. Any other comments or discussion online? If not, I would take a motion and a second on Hawkinson School District, if that's appropriate. - This is Commissioner Halbert making recommendation that we approve CPZ 22025-00005, Hawkinson School District as presented.

46:43 - This is Commissioner Berthold, I'll second that. - We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Berthold. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - Nay. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Caroon. - No. - Oishioa Duke-Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Five-two. - Motion passes. With that said, we'll now move on to, I believe it's La Center. Same thing if we could, I'm just looking at my page here on your, you know, quickly as we can get to page 16. - Okay. - Which gets us to the meat and potatoes of the La Center. - Okay, so for folks that we might have online, right now we have on the slide the location of La Center School District is CPZ 2025-0006.

47:42 We are using the same criteria, A and B, to evaluate the CFPs and associated impact fees. The staff report found future needs and facility locations outlined in the CFP to be consistent with GMA. And the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive plan, they found the, we found the financing plan outlined in the CFP is made up of bond proceeds and impact fees. We found the financing plan to be consistent with GMA. Impact fee related state statutes and the 2025 to 2045 comprehensive growth management plan. So we concluded it meets criterion A. And if we could move forward to slide 15, please. Staff found that district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable

48:41 based on the approach outlined in the CFP. We found the standard of service for the district to be consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts and found the district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County code. So based on these findings, we found that the proposal met criterion B. Next slide, please. The La Center School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on October 6th of 2025. We provided copies of the plans and the board special meeting minutes for your evidence. They are suggesting $7,536 for single family dwellings and $3,045 and 74 cents for multifamily dwellings. We received a public comment letter

49:37 that we received on the other proposals and a response from the school district's representative. And we are recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and impact fees based on consistency with all criteria. That concludes staff's presentation on this request. - Okay, questions for staff? I do have one quick thing. So we talked about this a long time ago, that basically with impact fees and property taxes is the cost of the school. And are we just doing this? That if there's more impact fees, there would be less because the cost of the school is going to stay the same, right? So it's not like, I just want to make sure because I think that was when I had my big aha moment last time, so wait a minute. What we're doing is we're saying impact fees

50:37 are going to be more, which would make the property tax on that specific building less, is that correct? - Yes, they would size the bond and levy to what they need to make up after forecasted impact fees. - Yeah, it's going to be the debt, it's going to be the debt but it's just where we're getting it from. Yeah, I just thought that was a clarifying point when I saw it last night. No questions from fellas offline there or online. - This is Commissioner Fadness. I just want to ask a quick question. Leanne, I noticed that the calculated single family fee on this one was about 15,000 and the proposed is half. Could you speak on the decision there? - Are you on the center? - Maybe that's getting a little too far into the weeds, but. - Yeah, so I had forgotten about that.

51:36 Thanks for pointing that out. Each school board looks at these fees and they give thoughtful, give it a lot of thought and whether they want to go up that high or not and they're cognizant of the impact of these fees on the price of housing and in this particular school board was not comfortable going to the maximum that the formula yielded. So it was a policy decision to recommend less. - Okay, thank you. Yeah, just trying to understand kind of the balance there where Carl says or pointed out that since this one's lower, I'm assuming then that that amount gets made up on property taxes on existing properties and new properties then, correct? - That's right and that's the balance that the school board has to wrestle with, honestly.

52:34 - Good question. - Okay, thank you. - Any other questions or comments? Bringing it back to us or discussion?

52:47 With that said, I would take a motion and a second if appropriate for La Center School District. - This is Commissioner Fadnis. I move to approve the recommended impact fee for La Center School District. - This is Commissioner Brookfield, I'll second that. - Jeff, we have a motion and a second to approve La Center School District capital facilities plan for 2026 to 2032. Can I get a roll call, please? - Chair, we do need to give an opportunity for public comment for each item. - Is there anybody out there? Is there anybody out there? - I'll give an opportunity for-- - Sorry about that, thank you. - So we'll begin with those participants that have joined remotely via computer or telephone. Please raise your virtual hand or press star free on your phone to let us know

53:45 if you would like to provide a comment. For those using a telephone option, please press star six to unmute yourself when it's your turn to speak. Nobody online? And you said there's nobody signed up in the hearing room? Okay, so that concludes public comment for this item. All right, and you said that there was-- - Thank you, we have a motion and a second. Can I get a roll call? - Brian Halbert? - Aye. - Mark Bergfold? - Aye. - Kyle Thadness? - Aye. - Ron Barca? - Aye. - Jack Haroon? - Aye. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery? - Aye. - Carl Johns? - Aye. - Seven, zero. - Motion passes. Moving on to our next school, which will be Washougal. Staff report. - Thank you, I will open the hearing for CPZ 2025-0007,

54:42 the Washougal School District Capital Facilities Plan for 2022 to 2027. As discussed prior, the two criterion are A and B. Staff found that this FP included all required CFP elements and information as adopted in the GMA and Clark County Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Staff found the future needs and facility locations outlined in the CFP to be consistent with GMA and the 2025-2045 Comprehensive Plan. Staff found financing plan outlined in the CFP meets criterion A because the financing plan has declared that based on enrollment forecast, existing capacity in the district's educational standards, there is no present need for new capital facilities. Therefore, the plan proposes impact fees of zero dollars.

55:42 Staff found the financing plan to be consistent with GMA, impact fee related state statutes and the GMA and based on these findings concluded, it meets criterion A. We need slide 19, please. Criterion B relates to standard of service. Staff found that the standard of service for the district is consistent with the standard of service for other Clark County school districts. Staff found the school district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County code and based on these findings found the proposal to meet criterion B. Next slide, please. The Washougal School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan, June 10th of 2025. You have a copy of that plan and the adopting board minutes in your hearing packet.

56:41 They are recommending zero dollar impact fees for single family dwellings and zero dollars for multifamily dwellings. The same public comment letter was submitted and as outlined in the staff report, we are recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal being consistent with all criteria. That concludes my presentation on this report. - Washougal care, are there any questions for staff on Washougal School District capital facilities plan? - Just kind of out of curiosity, did they recently build out capacity or are they just not growing? That they haven't developed any schools? - Yeah, this is a unique one and I wanted to speak to it. They have capacity, they haven't recently built anything that created capacity.

57:39 When we were before you three years ago, it's essentially the same plan, but we're updating it. The school board decided to update it this year, even though they didn't really have to because they will, and you'll note it's for the same time period, 2022 to 2027, so they're coming back next year too. They wanted to update it this year because there was a reference to a specific school site that they were going to purchase in the plan and they needed to correct that because they are not purchasing that property. They still need property eventually for new schools, so there's a line item in the plan that anticipates that they'll at some point purchase more property. We're not identifying it by site or address. So that was a correction. And it was also important to the school board that they include a section in their plan about the 20-year outlook.

58:38 They wanted to signal to their constituents that even though they're not growing right now and they have capacity, but eventually they will need new schools. And so they wanted to add some verbiage in their plan this year to signal that. So it really is, it's not changing dramatically from what you adopted a couple years ago. - So could we anticipate then, like in the next six months, like when the stuff changed, that they'll come back because they'll be identifying land that they would need for future growth kind of thing? - Yeah, maybe, if they have, then we will say, or if they purchased it because they do have funds to purchase the property if they find a site, and then we will update that. - And is this always based on a six-year growth projection? - Yes. So they're not allowed to jump past that. - And because it gets more speculative then,

59:36 but through this whole GMA update process, as you well know, there's a lot of growth allocated to existing cities and urban growth areas. So, and there is to the Washougal area. So if that materializes faster, then they might be able to demonstrate the need for new facilities sooner. So we will evaluate that next year to see if that looks like it's gonna be in the next six-year horizon, starting next year. - Any other questions? Okay, any public comment? - I'm gonna put it out to online. If you are interested in providing comment online, please raise your virtual hand by pressing star six on your phone.

1:00:32 I'm sorry, by pressing star three on your phone. Once you have been called on, please press star six to unmute yourself. Nobody online. And there's nobody in the hearing room who's interested in providing comments. So that concludes public comment for this item. - Okay, we now will close the public hearing testimony part. Bring it back to us. Is there any comments, questions, discussion? Or I will take a motion and a second. - This is Commissioner Barca. I'd like to go ahead and make a motion for CPZ 2025-00007, Washougal School District, to approve as staff recommended. - This is Commissioner Haroon, I'll second it. - We have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call, please, Jeff? - Brian Halbert? - Aye.

1:01:31 - Mark Bergfold? - Aye. - Kyle Fadness? - Aye. - Ron Barca? - Aye. - Jack Haroon? - Aye. - Oeisha LaDuke Montgomery? - Aye. - Carl Johnson? - Aye. - Seven, zero. - We have motion passes on Washougal. We now move on to CPZ 2025-0008, Woodland School District Capital Facilities Plan. Staff. - Thank you, Mr. Johnson. So we've got on the slide Woodland School District. We can go to slide 22. We evaluated the Woodland School District against the same criteria we used for the other districts. As it relates to criterion A, staff found that the CFP includes the required elements

1:02:30 and information as mandated in GMA and the Clark County Growth Management Plan. We found the future needs and facility locations outlined in the CP to be consistent with GMA and the 2025 to 2045 Comprehensive Plan. We found the financing plan outlined in the CFP to be made up of general obligation bonds, state construction funds, and impact fees. Staff found the financing plan is consistent with the GMA, impact fee-related state statutes, and the 2025 to 2045 Comprehensive Growth Management Plan. Based on these findings, staff conclude that proposal met criterion A. Next slide, please. Staff evaluated the plan against criterion B and found that the district enrollment projections, state and voter approved funding all appear reasonable and reliable

1:03:27 based on the approach outlined in the CFP. Staff found the standard of service for the district to be consistent with the standard of service of other Clark County school districts. Staff found the school district demonstrated appropriately applying the formula in Clark County Code Section 40.620.040 Based on the findings, staff concluded the proposal met criterion B. Next slide, please. The Woodland School District Board of Directors adopted a modified capital facilities plan on August 14th of 2025, a copy of which was included in your hearing packet. And they are recommending the county formally adopt the plan and the associated impact fees on your screen, which are $10,545.93 for single family dwellings, $13,664.57 for multifamily dwellings.

1:04:25 The public comment letter was also submitted for this case and was forwarded to you with your packet of information. And as outlined in the staff report, staff is recommending approval of the modified capital facilities plan and proposed impact fees based on the proposal being consistent with all criteria. That concludes staff's presentation on this last request. - Questions for staff regarding Woodland School District capital facilities plan. - This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. Am I correctly understanding that the school district was allocating 100% of the new growth, of the cost to new growth and none to like existing deficiency or, I don't know, like upgrade needs. And I don't know if that's odd or not. It just kind of, if that's true,

1:05:25 it kind of struck me as odd to say we need a completely new school just because we have new people coming in as opposed to maybe there's other factors that then the growth kind of puts it a little over the edge or something to that effect. - So I'm sorry, could you repeat your question? I'm not sure I understood. - And I just wanna make sure I'm understanding correctly. Are they allocating all of the cost of the new development to new growth as opposed to oh, our current facility is deficient or has other upgrade needs and therefore we need to increase fees? If that makes sense. - So let me just check their formula here.

1:06:09 I don't seem to have their formula. So, and it would be similar to Hawkinson. Yeah, it appears that they are, that if they are right at capacity right now in their elementary school, then the new school is completely needed for the new growth. So the formula takes that into account. Does that, that's correct?

1:06:38 - We have Commissioner Halbert here. Just wanted to clarify, is that $13,664 per rental unit being built? Pretty substantial increase for each apartment. - Again, it's a function of the formula. We're plugging in the data and that's what comes out. And, but I also mentioned again that that will be recalculated next year based on this directive from the state that they impact these need to be sized to the, need to be scaled to the size of the unit. So that will come down. - Hopefully. - So this will be a temporary number. - Yeah, and are these apartments and single families or multi-families and single families just in Clark County or are these also in Cowlitz County? - Clark County in the city of Woodland. We can't assess them in Cowlitz County.

1:07:34 - So only the portion of Woodland that is in Clark County. - Which is most of where the growth is occurring anyway. I'm not sure there's much allocated to the Cowlitz County. - So the new school then would most likely be in Clark County. - Oh yes, in the city of Woodland most likely, yeah. - Okay, yeah, thank you. - Any other comments, questions? - Just to clarify that. So this, most of the city of Woodland is in Cowlitz County, correct? And it's just a little horseshoe portion that around Horseshoe Lake that is Clark County. Am I? - I don't know where that, but they can charge impact fees throughout the city of Woodland. - They can't even though, and then do our county impact fees reflected in as the city's impact fees, if the city is in, if most of the city is actually not in Clark County?

1:08:32 - The city has to adopt the same capital facilities plan and impact fee request by separate action. So they could decide to, in fact, they're in the process of analyzing that right now. They could decide to adopt the same fee that's before you tonight or something less. - So, and this is my lack of understanding how some of the stuff, 'cause Cowlitz County isn't allowed to charge impact fees, correct? - That's correct. - But a city is allowed, so like the city of Longview would be able to charge impact fees? - No, it's because the city of Woodland's in a G, partially in a GMA county, they can elect to be-- - Oh, they have a loophole. - They do. - Okay. - That's what I wanted to-- - That's what I was trying, that's where I was getting confused, so. - They're in a portion of Woodland is in a, required a GMA planning county. So the city of Woodland have always been planning.

1:09:30 This is all the void you've got to be planning along with Clyde County. - Okay. - Yeah. - It's unique in that way. - All right, thank you. Yeah. (laughs) - May I ask that you guys please speak one at a time? 'Cause I'm losing the ends of what you guys are saying, talking over each other. - We'll do better, Cindy. - Thank you. - This is Commissioner Barca. I guess I need clarification on what we just stated then. In regards to this request, only the portion of Clark County is going to collect impact fees. So these numbers are reflective specifically on building permits that are gonna come through the city, but on the Clark County side

1:10:28 and the Cowlitz County side, which will contribute children to it, has no impact fees. Is that correct? - That's correct, that's correct. - Okay. - This is Oliver Jack again. You have to look at the, I believe on the boundary of the school district. Which majority of that boundary is in Clark County? I believe, I don't think it's only the Horseshoe Lake area, but you are correct that this impact fee will be collected within the boundary of the Woodland School District. - Excuse me, it's Commissioner Barca again.

1:11:26 Just again, for more clarification then, the portion of the Woodland School District in Clark County outside of the city is not going to have any multifamily building. - True. - Okay. - Because there is no multifamily zoning. - And inside the city in the Horseshoe District, I don't believe there's any zoning for multifamily building either. So when we look at this number, what was the school board hoping to do? Are they hoping to multiply this outside of the Clark County area? - Yes, Leanne Bremer. So the school board, we calculate the fee for the district. And so this true, you may not collect this multifamily fee in Clark County, but there will be apartments in the city of Woodland, which is the same amount

1:12:25 if the city adopts the same amount. So the school board only, I guess another way of saying it is they only calculate the fee, only one fee for the whole district. And they don't calculate it per city or per county. - So just to clarify, we could have a $10,000 fees 'cause we're not gonna be no, it doesn't look like there'll be any multifamily. So $10,500 fee for single family in Clark County, but the city of Woodland, they're not bound by this number or is it just a precedent setting or can they go, we're gonna charge $3,000 per multifamily and $3,000 for like, they have that option. They're not bound. - That's correct. - In that reciprocity, they can split it up. - That's correct. And so it's ultimately the jurisdictions call

1:13:25 on what the fee is. And each jurisdiction has autonomy to decide what that fee is. So the city of Woodland could decide that, no, they're not going to adopt these same fees as the county did. And they have that option. - Any other questions? - Just for a little bit of clarification, the umbrella is correct. It has always been a, this is Oliver Jaco speaking, has always been a preference that the cities

1:14:05 go through their own hearing process first so we know what they're going to be assessing. Our goal is always to be consistent where that is possible, but Leanne is correct. Miss Leanne Bremer is correct that the jurisdiction, in this case, the city of Woodland can decide to charge a much lower fee, that's their call. Coming to the boundary issue, when you look at, this is what I was getting at earlier, when you look at the other school districts that are in the county, evergreen overlaps, evergreen school district. Some portion are in the city of Camels, some portion are in the city of Vancouver. We charge the same fees. The cities charge the same fee. Battleground is the same. A portion of battleground is all the way

1:15:03 to, well we say majority of battleground school district is all in the county, but the boundary of battleground school district extends all the way to the 179 corridor, for example. You look at Richfield School District, it comes further south and absorbs the whole Clark County Fair area and some portion of 179, we charge the same fee as the city of Richfield. So that's what I was saying earlier that we preferred the cities because you wouldn't want, unless you want to use a policy approach where you want to direct growth to some, say for a city, if the impact fee is much lower. Developers can take advantage of that, but that's not what we are often preferred.

1:16:03 We want the fees to be consistent. - Any other questions for staff or Leon? Any, well, before that, do we have anybody online? - Just to quickly run through the instructions again. Those who have joined remotely via computer or phone, please raise your virtual hand or press star for you on your phone to let us know if you'd like to provide comment. Nobody online and still nobody in the hearing room who'd like to provide comment, so that does conclude public comment for this agenda item. - Okay, bringing it back, hearing none, we'll bring it back to the commissioners. Any discussion and/or a motion and a second? - As commissioner, I think just for discussion purposes,

1:16:59 my concern is the jump in fees, especially with the multifamily. In a place that needs housing and that will not be able to command high rents, that can create some real barriers to housing, and I think that's something to really think about.

1:17:25 - Any other questions or comments? - This is Commissioner Barka. So, Jack, going back to your statement, are you saying that you consider this too large? - Yeah, I would keep it as is, just because that is not a market that can absorb really high costs. If I'm in downtown Vancouver, I can absorb pretty high costs, 'cause they're housing costs, what we're able to sell houses for, what we're able to rent apartments for. When you look at the city of Woodland, it's just not there. It's just the market's not there, the housing costs aren't there, so the cost to produce the house and then what you can sell it for, and especially if you want apartments and you're starting to do some smaller apartments, that could be really, really problematic. And so I think it's, in my opinion,

1:18:24 I would vote no now and then we'd look at it in six months when they're looking at the reduced stuff. But I certainly wouldn't want to kill somebody's project right now that's getting ready to build based on a high-impact fee, especially on multi-family. - Okay, so this is Commissioner Barka. For my understanding, then, you're seeing the single-family fee as high but acceptable, but on the multi-family is not acceptable? - I would argue, especially in that market, the single-family fee is still too high. See, we're looking at all these fees 'cause then right after this, we're gonna have a whole 'nother set of fees coming up, and all of these fees are really starting to stack.

1:19:23 It's heavy on housing costs, and we keep saying we have an affordability crisis, but then everybody's, you know, it keeps adding up. And so, you know, where's the line? And that's kind of the, yeah. That's where I'm struggling. No. - Okay, it sounds like the line is Cowlitz County. - Well, there's a, I mean, there's a difference. I mean, La Center, we were going up to 7,000. Woodland's going up to 10,000. La Center, you get more for your housing than you can in Woodland. And so, you know, if I'm looking at that, I mean, the reality is I don't like any of these fees. But, you know, I'm trying to balance the, you know, balance the thing, so.

1:20:20 Commissioner Halbert here, well, it may work itself out. If you can't afford to build an apartment, you're not gonna have students that are going to overwhelm the school district either. So, one way of, yeah, controlling what happens. But I'm with you, Jack, and Woodland provides a lot of housing for the workforce, and this is a substantial fee on an apartment complex.

1:20:51 - Any other questions or comments? - This is Commissioner LaDuke-Montgomery. Do we have any sense on what the fees on like a typical apartment would get adjusted down to in the next year? Do we have to reopen up to ask questions like that? - So, there's a consultant that the school district collectively hired to come up with a methodology for complying with the new law and how we're gonna scale it to either size of dwelling or number of bedrooms. That's one of the options that the statute provides. And then, so it's not just half or three quarters or a quarter, it's based on student generation rates for related to the size of the dwelling. So, it's complicated and it's a long way of saying

1:21:50 I don't know what those numbers are gonna look like until we get the calculation figured out. First of all, the methodology, and then we have to calculate new student generation rates, and then we have to apply it to the numbers in our capital facilities plan. And so, I just couldn't even begin to guess what that looks like. - Okay, thanks. Any other questions or comments? Okay, well, we have a motion or a second from anybody. - Yeah, Commissioner Halbert, I'll make a motion to approve CPZ 2025-00008 Woodland School District Capital Facilities Plan as presented. - Do we have a second? - Commissioner Berthold, I'll second. - We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please?

1:22:49 - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Berthold. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - No. - Ron Barka. - No. - Jack Caroon. - No. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - No. - Carl Johnson. - Yes. - Three to four. - Motion fails, correct? - Okay, motion fails. Okay, with that said, we are now done with the school districts, is that correct? - Holly [INAUDIBLE] that is correct. We're going to the fire districts now. - I want to just give a quick, maybe a four or five minute break for Cindy right now, and then we'll move right into the fire and we'll get those guys done and out of here, so take a five minute break and come on back. - Cindy says she needs 10. - Cindy says she needs 10. 10 minutes.

1:23:49 We're now moving on to CPZ2025, zero, zero, one, zero, fire district number three, capital facilities plan. Bart Ketching, are you here, Bart? Yes, you are, okay. - I have my log back into my computer here, so I have to get my phone to do the dual authentication, but Oliver's going to say something. - All right, Oliver. - Yes, good evening Planning Commission members, Oliver Ojeko, I just want to make a very quick remark because you might say this is new. Yes, this is new. The fire district came to Clark County Council and asked for the opportunity to assess fire impact fee

1:24:47 and the council granted that. If you recall, you know, time flies, but we came to the Planning Commission through the docket process and amended Title 40 to add opportunity to the fire district to assess fire impact fee. That ordinance I believe was adopted by council in 2024. Don't want to make any other comments. The fire district, some of them are here, they did appear before the council and make the plea because they're seeing growth, even though majority of the fire districts are in the rural area, they're seeing growth just as it's occurring in the urban area, even though we have put majority of the growth in the urban area

1:25:44 and there is a provision in the GMA to minimize, not really minimize, but look at the growth that is occurring and see how much growth you put in the rural area because it requires infrastructure, whether you're drawing, building additional well or drawing from existing water resources and the infrastructure there to support growth in the rural area where you do not provide other urban levels of services. So there is a difference in the number of growth we put in the rural area, but for some of these areas, based on the preferred plan that you reviewed, we don't see any significant change in the rural zoning. However, there are capacity in the rural area that the need is there.

1:26:43 The fire districts will speak when it's their turn in terms of the number of calls, the equipment that they need. Things doesn't remain the same. Their physical buildings will require expansion and all that stuff, but I don't need to speak to them. They are here to speak on that. So, Bat will give the presentation in terms of our review. You asked a lot of question about the formula. We have followed that, so I'll leave it up to Bat, and we are here to answer questions as we can. Thank you. - Good evening, commissioners. Bart Katching, Community Planning, and happy to finally be up here talking with you all about this. I intend to follow a similar approach

1:27:40 that we settled on for the last group of hearings in that we have to gavel in and gavel out each one of these, but the basic framework of analysis from the county's perspective is the same. So, I'll be a little more detailed in my comments on this first one and then just hit the highlights on the other ones and leave the majority of the time and energy for question and answer. I will say at the outset that I am very pleased and grateful that I have two of the fire chiefs in the room. I have Chris Drone from District 3 and David Russell from the newer chief from District 6 in the room, and then online, I have Gordon, Chief Gordon Brooks from District 10 and John Knorr from Clark Cowlitz, and they are all available for comments and I would definitely defer to them for any technical questions outside of the staff report.

1:28:39 Thank you. So, without further ado, the first one we're looking at, we're just going in the order, numerical order, that's how we put them on the agenda for you all. The CPZ 2025, 00010, District 3, Capital Facilities Plan and Impact Fees. As Oliver mentioned, we are in a slightly different situation than the school districts in that we don't have an existing plan that we are asking to amend and update. We're asking that you all provide a recommendation on a new plan that has been requested from these four districts. They are the four districts that have chosen to move forward with this since the 2024 adoption of the code that allowed the fire fees. So, that code is found in 4620-060 and various parts in that portion,

1:29:38 chapter of the County Development Code. If you could scroll down, Jeff, to the table for this district. There we go, the summary table. So, District 3, just to summarize real quick, so you get oriented, District 3 covers 92 square miles. It serves a population of approximately 46,000. The boundary includes Battleground and as well as the communities of Hawkinson, Brush Prairie, Vensburg, Hyson, Battleground Lake and the surrounding areas. So, they are utilizing the formula that was approved by county council and adopted in the county code in 2024. Using that formula gets you these numbers that they're requesting. So, this is the same that was presented to you all in the work session.

1:30:37 The staff reports are the exact same, so nothing has changed since our discussion two weeks ago. The proposed fees are in front of you. That the formula generates based on the inputs that the fire districts used in their capital facilities plan. 992 for single family, 505 for a multi-family unit and non-residential construction per square foot cost of $1.36. The fire districts, much like the analysis for the school districts, have to both meet GMA and the comp plan and then, once we establish that the submitted plans meet that threshold criteria, then we move on to the development code criteria which was adopted as part of that code update in 2024. We structured our staff reports the same,

1:31:35 as close as we could to the school district staff reports, understanding that this is still a different set of fees with a different formula, but we wanted everybody to be looking at roughly the same format of a staff report. So, therefore, we have, what you'll see in these staff reports is a criterion A, so the big first group that speaks to the applicability, or not the applicability, whether the plans have met the GMA criteria for capital facilities plans and impact fees and then our comprehensive plan criteria and then, once we establish through our findings in the staff report and we say yes to that, then we move on to part B, which is the more specific section of 4620-050B and the four-part analysis,

1:32:32 very similar to what we were just talking about with the schools. So, without going through the process of reading the staff report, back to you all, the general thrust for all of the districts, and starting with District Three, which this hearing is about, is that staff found, as discussed on pages three and four of the staff report, and this is the same pagination for all the staff reports, I believe, that the fire district's capital facilities plan includes the required elements and information listed in the RCW and WACS sections and is consistent with the land use and capital facilities elements of the comprehensive plan. The details of those findings are in the staff report. And then, the second general criterion that the plans must meet, part B with 4620-050B,

1:33:29 that A, that the district's forecasted future needs appears reasonable, B, whether the anticipated level of funding described in the district's financing plan appears reasonable and historically reliable, C, whether the level of service standards set by the district are reasonably consistent with the standards set by other districts and communities of similar socioeconomic profile, and D, whether the district appropriately applied the formula set out in 4620-060. And again, as we discussed at the work session, our findings on those criteria and our recommendation is that the district's plans as submitted and starting with district three here for this hearing is that the plans do meet all four of those criteria that the Planning Commission is supposed to look at and in particular, to draw your attention

1:34:29 to the second finding or the, yeah, the third finding.

1:34:39 That all of these plans have a section in referring to level of service and it's different than school level of service. Obviously, it's the fire response time and that nature of level of service. And all of these plans either maintain or improve the level of service based on if they were able to generate these fees and add them to their overall financing of their capital facilities and then they would be able to meet their standards that they need to meet. So the conclusion for section B, criterion B, is that also this plan meets that and so we recommend that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission recommends to the council to approve proposed fire district three

1:35:39 capital facilities plan impact fees of 992 for single family, 505 for multifamily and $1.36 per square foot for non-residential development. That concludes my brief comments and again, we have Chief Drone here who I know would at least like a short opportunity to speak to you all and answer any questions but any questions for me before we get to that? Any questions for staff? Chief, you can come up here if you want to and sit up if you've got any questions for you guys. Yeah, come on, yeah, come on, yeah, sure. If you start talking, so is there any questions? Either the applicants or staff, yeah. - This is Commissioner Haroon. I'm just, I'm gonna need somebody to kind of walk me through kind of how the formula works

1:36:38 and then how we get 992 for single family residents versus 505 for multifamily residents if that's based on what kind of service, what kind of service is provided and what's, how that's looked at, I guess, so. - Can you hear me? Okay, yes, this is Chris Drone, Fire Chief, Fire District Three. So the question is how do we differentiate between single family, multifamily in the formula? - Yeah, so basically, if you could just walk me through the formula and how you come up with. - Of course, yeah, so. - And then what we're looking at as far as, I know the capital facilities is, you know, for equipment. So it's kind of like this ongoing equipment fund that we can, you know, that's different. So it's buildings and equipment. - Building, yes, right, yeah, buildings and equipment. Where like schools, it's buildings one time. And so just kind of how that's looked at,

1:37:38 I know like versus service level, 'cause I know what, like 75% are medical calls, maybe 25% is fire. And so then I look at multifamily residences of like, well, why is it only 505 if 75% is medical, it's not fire? So just, yeah, kind of rationale on how the formula works and what that looks like. - Yeah, I think I can help with that. So originally what we do is we look at what our capital needs are for the next 20 years. That includes stations, apparatus, facilities, and everything that you see in our table here. We then consult with the county and in my case, the city of battleground to see what they have planned for 20 years as far as growth. So after consulting with the county and the city, we determined that district three is looking at 40% growth in the next 20 years. So we take that 40% and we apply it in a formula.

1:38:38 So if you want to, I don't know if you can see the formulas on there, but so we take 40% of the total amount and that's attributed to new growth. So our case, we started with 32 million and 40% of that, 13 million. Then what we do is we look at the volume of response that we have to those different land use areas. So we have single family, multifamily and commercial. In our case for single family, we respond to single family 64% of the time. So their fees are a little bit higher. Multifamily, it's 11% of the time and commercial is 26% of the time. So we wanted to be cognizant that each land use type was paying their appropriate share. And then I think there was a question about apparatus versus stations or?

1:39:36 - So I think the fire impact fee is different in how it can be utilized than any other impact fee. So any other income impact fee for the most part is just, it's a one-time capital use thing and it can't be paid for old stuff. It's gotta be for new and for new capital facilities. Fire's unique in that it can be used for engines and like, oh, I need a new engine so we can still dip into that fund versus an ongoing maintenance thing. So you have, the state law allows for some pretty extraordinary flexibility from an impact fee standpoint. I guess my concern there is it turns into a slush fund to where it's, we're taking impact fees and then not collecting enough in general revenue because people don't wanna pay more in taxes to, you know, we've had trouble with fire bonds.

1:40:34 So I think that's my concern in that. That's just more of a policy question on the county side, you know, for the commissioners. But yeah, so I think it is, I think from a long-term standpoint, because we're not dealing with a one-time purchase, is it a moving target, if that makes sense? - It's a rolling target. So, you know, needs change, right? Growth changes, it goes up, it goes down. Specifically with the apparatus, I can tell you that with growth, you have more calls, right? So you're running the wheels off those things. We have engines that would have in the past lasted 30, 35 years, now they have a 20-year lifespan just because we're responding more, and we're responding more because we're growing. So I think that's the mindset of policymakers

1:41:33 who allowed apparatus to be part of a capital plan and eligible for impact fees. Speaking to going to the voters, as you know, we have the capacity to assess a property tax levy and then ask for a lift on that. So with that, with Fire District 3, and most of the fire districts, we're in a position where we use that to fund our operational costs. And specifically for us, that was getting enough people to staff the apparatus, right? So our goal is to have three people on each engine. So that was the ask with the levy. I don't know if that answered your question, or at least addressed. - Yeah, and what percentage of, if new growth requires one engine, two million dollars, whatever it is,

1:42:31 what percentage of that are you trying to capture from impact fees? - 40%. - 40%, okay.

1:42:42 You probably answered this, the 13 million, what is that again? - That's 40% of the total. - That's the 40%, okay, that's what I wanted to know, yeah. Okay, any other questions? Comments? - This is Commissioner Barca. I guess more in the context of a comment, but non-residential buildings, I'm assuming we're talking like commercial and ag buildings, things of that nature. - Correct. - Okay, $1.36 per square foot seems like a very, very high number when you think about the size of many of the buildings that are getting built for commercial purposes. Was there, other than the aspect that this is what the formula rolls out, was there any discussion about what that does

1:43:41 towards the aspect of raising the cost on a building, let's say 10,000 square feet's gonna end up like $13,000? - Yeah, for that to answer your question, we strictly deferred to the math, so we're running calls to those commercial businesses 26% of the time, so we didn't want to alter the math on that, but I understand what you're saying. - Has there been any discussion about the aspect of trying to work out perhaps mandatory sprinkling or something of that nature to drive down the number of calls? - Yes, so that's already in RCW, and it's not included in our particular CFP, but for, not for commercial, but for single family,

1:44:38 if you do put in a sprinkler system, then you only pay the portion that's attributed to the EMS side, so you would get, in our case, a 16% discount for having that sprinkler system. - Okay, yeah, I think, Jack, thinking about it, just the aspect of single family dwelling, putting in a sprinkler system, it's probably about 20 grand. - Yeah, it's been a Minnesota one, but 15 to 20 is probably right. - Yeah, depending upon what water source you have. - Yeah, there's a bunch of factors, yeah. - Yeah, 'cause you gotta get the water pressure. - Yeah, and back to your point, Commissioner, I don't think I touched on it. Primarily, we do run EMS calls, right, but the large expense is that operational readiness component, so we can respond, right?

1:45:37 - And we want you to respond. (laughs) So, question on the 26% to commercial. So, I have some real questions, like, when we look at, we need a manufacturing hub, we need a new, you know, I know there's some people expanding out in battleground, you know, with some manufacturing jobs and different things. Is that 26% of the time we're going to those large, like, a large warehouse facility? 'Cause I think, like, somebody builds 100,000 square feet of, you know, light industrial building, you know, are we charging them $136,000 in fire impact fee when it's warehouse and it's, you know, or if it's a storage unit facility, or if it's versus, you know, the local Fred Meyer and the CVS and the little stores where you might be responding a lot more because of just the volume of people, and then. So, is there a consideration there?

1:46:36 Because it seems like it's all being treated the same, and it isn't the same. - There is consideration, not in this iteration. So, to be clear, this one was approved by our board in 2024 and then by the city of battleground in December of 2024. They had a similar comment. So, we are looking at separating some of those commercial occupancies. Some of the assisted care gets lumped in, right? The assisted living facilities, 'cause it's not multi-family, right? So, that was where I was leaning the most was see if we can carve that out and see what that would do to the commercial rate. So, I would recommend we do that during periodic review, but it's definitely on the table and something we have thought about. - Why wouldn't we do that now? I mean, if that's the, I know we had the proposal,

1:47:35 but that's kind of our job is to go, well, if warehouse A creates almost zero calls and the assisted living creates 320 calls a year, shouldn't we treat those different? Shouldn't that be part of the proposal brought to us that we're kind of segregating the actual impact versus lumping in? Because especially if we're trying to promote job growth, 'cause our purview is we're planning, right? So, we're looking at job growth and housing and everything. And so, I get concerned when we just start lumping that in and we're like, well, look, we needed a larger manufacturing facility, but then we're starting to hammer 'em versus small individual stores that may have a higher load and yeah.

1:48:30 - Yeah, I mean, that is, it's a long analysis. I'm not trying to make an excuse. So, that's something that we can do. To your point, most of these facilities are in the city of battleground. My goal is to keep fees consistent with the city and the county. And once that happens, then adjust both of those at the same time. So, we're not looked at as the county subsidizing the city or vice versa with impact fees. - Any other questions online? Kyle? Okay, hearing none, bring it back. Do we have anybody online that speaks to this?

1:49:24 - Going to give instructions again just to give-- - Just because it's fun, yeah. - For those online, if you're interested in providing comment, please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your phone to let us know you would like to provide a comment. Nobody has done so. And still nobody in the hearing room who is interested in providing comments. So, we'll go ahead and close public comment on this agenda item. - Okay, public comment is closed. Let's bring it back to us. Is there any discussion? I know this is new to us or questions to each other. - This is Commissioner Fadness. Yeah, I just kind of want to echo what Jack said earlier and I share the same concerns with him where these fees and what they can be used for are completely different than the schools.

1:50:24 Looking through some of them, I see a $90,000 pickup truck and a $30,000 boat. And to me, I do appreciate all the work that the districts have put into these plans. But to me, it almost seems like a way to skirt the democratic process of going out to the voters for bonds and levies, or I should say levy lifts. And can be used as kind of a slush fund going forward. And so, just with the nature of what these can be spent on, I don't know if I can even recommend any of them. Especially as Jack mentioned, we have this affordability crisis and this is just kind of one more fee that we tack on, one more thing to make housing more unaffordable. And potentially kill jobs too with the high commercial fees here. So, that's just kind of my comments

1:51:23 on all of these fees in general, not just this district. - Anybody else? - I think-- - Can I have him spell his name, please? - Fadness? - That was Commissioner Fadness, F-A-D-N-E-S-S. - No, I'm sorry. The person testifying, throne? - Yes, it's D as in dog, R-O-N-E. - I think, for me, my biggest heartburn is the non-resident control construction and that it feels a little half-baked, that it wasn't thoughtful enough. And quite frankly, I expect more.

1:52:18 When we're putting real money, real fees on our community, that I want a better analysis and a better justification for it. So, yeah, because I just see as somebody wants to come in and do a 50,000 square foot warehouse and start creating jobs and we go, here's a new bill for you, even though you're not having that kind of impact, it's not the message I want to send to our community. So, I think it, not completely opposed to it, but I think it needs more work. So, that's where I'm at. - This is Commissioner Bertfold and I come from a career, not only in schools, but in fire. Did some of these same calculations, so I understand the gist, although Washington does things different than California.

1:53:15 We have the largest county in the lower 48 states and the county fire department. So, as you, this is a hybrid, just so my fellow commissioners, the schools basically talking facilities, as Jack pointed out. Once you start rolling in equipment and different equipment is required for different kinds of warehouse, different kinds of goods, what type of industry it is. It's, and nothing is cheap. If we think the cars went up and the price of pickup trucks, fire trucks are just phenomenal. Probably take the figure you have in your mind and double it. But it's a necessary evil if I can speak kind of on behalf of the fire service

1:54:14 and trying to be proactive, which I give all the chiefs that are here tonight very, a lot of credit for doing that, trying to stay ahead of the game. You don't wanna be on the backend where, well, we have reserve equipment, just wasn't up to the task and we've had all this stuff. It is, you're kind of the tail of the dog, but when things catch on fire, explosions and stuff happens, then all of a sudden that tail is blamed for a lot of stuff. If you can't adequately take care of it as you have taken care of everything else in the past. So you don't wanna be on the not prepared, put it that way. So yeah, from what I can see

1:55:12 and listening to the conversation, there's probably some refinements that could be done and a little bit in the delivery, but just to give you a feel for what they're dealing with, trying to plan ahead. So you guys have a pretty good idea of the timeline, how much time it takes to plan a building, especially a commercial building and actually see it to where it's commissioned and put into use. It's about the same length of time if you order a piece of apparatus, you better start two to three years before and hope that the manufacturer that you're gonna go to because you want that engine that they have enough room. It's like if you got to buy all your planes from Boeing or Airbus, you hope that somebody hasn't put in an order

1:56:11 for 200 planes and you're gonna wait. So anyway, I just wanna give fire credit. Thank you guys for being there. And it's just something we'll probably wrestle with, but it's kind of the nature of the beast. So I just wanna make that comment. - Any other comments? - This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. And I just wanna clarify my understanding on this kind of back and forth. The 26% on commercial is because it was 26% of the calls. Is that how that number was calculated? - Yes. - Okay, thanks. I just wanna confirm that. - Any other comments, Ron? - This is Commissioner Barca.

1:57:10 Based on what Mark said, I think I wanna be clear and I believe this is the belief of the commission themselves. It isn't that we're questioning the mission at all. It's the aspect that this portion of the cost of doing business is just one of the portions that we see on a regular basis, right? And so sometimes we look at data and it's very clear. Sometimes it's muddy and it makes it more difficult to ascertain whether the ask is well thought out and clearly understood, or whether it's a wishlist of best intentions. In this particular case, I think as we see each one of these fire districts come forward, one of the things I noticed is in the capital facilities line items,

1:58:09 it doesn't appear that even the terminology of what equipment is being requested is the same, or that there's been consultation about what you believe pricing should look like. I think staff vehicles is just like one example. It goes from 60,000 to 95,000 or something like that, depending upon which fire district. There may be specific needs that one district has over another, but it's difficult I think for us to ascertain that when we see this kind of fluctuation and what we're dealing with. Also the aspect of what we were presented, and we're gonna get to the other districts I know, but sprinkled or not sprinkled, I think in the pricing structure, I think everybody, if you have a price break or some differential because of that, I think that's really valuable for us to know and understand.

1:59:09 So before you go to the county council, it may be advisable to polish these up a little bit and to make sure that terminology matches up and whatever you have in the way of actual price breaks or needs on a per foot basis or per dwelling basis, it's noted in there. I look at this and I say, okay, these are needs that district three has, and they believe that each one of them is valid. We have to take it back and just say, do we believe that this will, in some fashion, impede the growth of the commercial sector? And as I think Jack alluded to, if all commercial buildings are all wrapped up together, we can only look at it from the standpoint of thinking all commercial buildings are gonna be generating jobs and they have a generalized value

2:00:07 as opposed to the more specific, the more granular you can get for us, the easier it is for us to understand the mission and the impact of the particulars that you're looking at. That's my comments. - Any others? Just for my take, I think we, I'm kind of with you, Ron, in part of what you said. We see so much of this stuff coming at us in this plan, and I'm talking about the growth plan. And I have, from the state, mandating us things that I just go, great, why are we even having to vote on it? The other thing, climate, the climate stuff, to me, it's been a hard pill. And we consistently walk down this path and we do what we have to do. But when we get to something, in my mind, and this is from a guy that grew up in Paradise, California, when you get, and it's the truth, where you wanna ask that community right now,

2:01:07 if you don't know, it was gone. My high school, gone, and those people, it'd be like that. It is not about, and I agree with you, it's not about the mission. But I just think that when money is coming up, and especially when we've started out, this is the first time we've seen these, it's not like the schools, and I would argue, that the schools should know better when they send us stuff that isn't jivin'. This is the first time. All right, I'll take it for what it is. I have to trust them. I live up in North County. That place could do what Paradise did, and so therefore, I am willing to say, I'm gonna acquiesce to the professionals and what they are and what they do. Slush fund is kind of a brutal term in my mind, because I don't think we're just out buying things. I think we're trying to do the best we can and take our county from the 20th century right now into the 21st century. And I don't like, you know, if you look up at La Center,

2:02:05 the fire, the bond that's coming up, I'm in 10, District 10, the school district, the impact fees, build a house up there now is gonna get tough, but I still believe the people that should, or the groups that should went out, you can't go up there and just willy-nilly build the place out, even in five increments, acre increments, and then say, well, we don't have roads, we don't have fire, we don't have schools, but we have all the climate change stuff right, or whatever, that's my daily today, you know. So I am very supportive of it. I struggle with, Jack, exactly with what you said, affordability, we're balancing this. You know, right now, the prices of everything are here, income levels are here, inflation is somewhere, and we're all trying to catch this up. But in the meantime, we have to be responsible. So that's my soapbox derby for the day, so. So any questions, or I'll take a motion or in a second, if we have one.

2:03:04 - This is Commissioner Berthold. I'll make a motion to approve the request of the fees for Fire District number three, as presented. - This is Commissioner Lateef Montgomery, and I'll second that. - We have a motion and a second. That said, Jeff, can we get a roll call? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Berthold. - Aye. - Kyle Faddis. - No. - Ron Barca. - I'm going to say aye, but I'm very uncomfortable about the non-residential construction fee, aye. - Jack Haroon. - No. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Five, two. - Motion passes. Thank you very much for coming and staying so late. - Appreciate it. - Thanks for having me again. - Appreciate it.

2:04:02 - Okay, next up is CPZ 2025. I believe we're at Fire District six, is that correct? Come on up.

2:04:28 - Commissioners, this is Bart Katching. So chief drone has been the standard bearer on this project from the get go and has been working tirelessly and very supportive, both for me in my learning process, but also for the other fire districts. So he's agreed to stay and kind of be backup expert in waiting, especially since for district six, we have a relatively new chief. And so if you guys are okay with that, that's how we'll approach it. - Glad you're staying. - Okay, I mean, we have the other two chiefs online as well for when we get to them coming up here. Okay, so again. - Bart, one more thing before you start these. Just for my, I don't have a map in front of me. Just kind of letting us know where they're kind of generally. - Yeah. - But not specifically. - Yeah, then the map that I had at the work session.

2:05:27 I mean, we could pull that up, but I have the descriptions. So I intend to rile that off for each one, if that helps. And is it helpful to have the population served in that stuff? I mean, yeah, okay, all right. So next up, we are talking about CPZ 2025-00011,

2:05:54 Fire District 6 Capital Facilities Plan and Impact Fees. As I stated at the outset, I won't go through the criteria in any great detail unless you have a particular question. The findings for both the large criteria A that speaks to the RCWs and WACs and the county comprehensive plan, we found that was met the basic threshold requirements. And then in the criteria B, the four-part review for this group. Again, very similar plan in structure and approach. And so we also found that this Fire District 6 meets that criteria, and therefore we recommend approval. Jeff, if you could scroll down just to the little

2:06:52 fee table there, great. So similar situation, slightly different numbers, but same formula, same approach for District 6 here. Single-family 791, multi-family 563 per unit, non-residential 91 cents per square foot.

2:07:14 This District 6 is the district that serves 37 square miles in the communities of Hazel Dell, Salmon Creek, Felida, Mount Vista, and part of the Fairgrounds area. This district has a population that serves of 77,000 and growing, so a lot of folks in District 6. Even for a smaller geographic area than some of the other districts. Again, I would bring your attention to the findings in the latter section, Criterion B, when we talk about the level of service. The level of service for Fire Districts goes from rating of one being the best to 10 being the worst, and this plan would allow them to offer a overall level of service of three.

2:08:12 And so that is very good and very consistent if they're able to maintain this plan. Beyond that, I don't have any particular details that I think I would be able to answer any better than the Fire Chiefs, and so we recommend approval as with the other plans, and I'm happy to answer questions or punt to our chiefs. - Questions for staff? - Sure, Commissioner Halbert. What's the percentage of breakdown for calls? Chief Drone had residential, multifamily, and commercial. Is it the same breakdown? It seems like there's more. Well, of course, you got Union Ridge, a lot of commercial area there.

2:09:11 - We do, and hello, good afternoon. My name's David Russell. I'm the Fire Chief with Clark County Fire District 6. And to give you guys a little bit of context, I do want to let you know I've been Fire Chief for about four months. I was not involved in developing this capital facilities plan. It was developed under previous district leadership and adopted by our board before my tenure as chief. My role today is to try to answer any questions I can. As far as the call volume and call splitage, we run about 13,000 calls a year in our district. How these were delineated with the non-residential, I would assume, I think they were assisted with Chief Drone's help as well. So I believe they are the same, and he can jump in if he would like to add any more. I was taking good notes and listening to your guys' concerns, and I certainly commiserate with the position that we're putting you in. I would say many of the mandates that you guys are dealing with,

2:10:11 the fire service is feeling as well, to the extent of putting elevators in a two-story fire station that is mandated by federal law to a $4 million ladder truck to a over a million dollar fire engine. We get, with our service levels, we get about seven years frontline out of a fire engine before it has to be moved into reserve status. We can get about 15 to 16 years of full service life because of the miles we put on it. If you drive through any of our neighborhoods, you'll see our crews out there every day serving the public. It's a lot of calls, we average about 35 calls a day. So this is a revenue source that helps us provide those services. Obviously, we are trying to address the growth in our area with this, and this provides us that opportunity. I certainly, again, hear the commission as they speak about the concern

2:11:09 with what we are able to spend this on. I will also confirm, as one of the commissioners did note, that there is no slush fund in the fire service. I really wish there was. We will go out for every lift that we can when we have to in order to keep the lights on and keep the rigs coming out when the community calls us. So we are in that position now. I guess, I don't know if I completely answered your question. I just wanted to open with a statement as I heard some of those questions previously. - Yeah, thanks. Maybe if on the screen they could put the formula breakdown like we saw for District 3, that'd be helpful. - Yeah, I'm finding that. - That might answer the question. - Finding that page right now. Bear with me, 'cause I wasn't exactly sure how this conversation was going to go, so. - No, while we're waiting,

2:12:07 I liked what Commissioner Barka said too. Not, I know you guys are, this is the first time we've run through this, but his idea of polishing up before the decision makers, which will be the council, get this and just go, okay, look, here's the things, and this is what we're trying to do, because I think it's needed. I just, you know, it's the first time, and like I said, I, that was interesting about the non-residential. And so I went, oh, that's old. And then you threw in the assisted livings, and I'm like, oh boy, you know, this has really got to get parsed out. Obviously, it's going to be, but I would just encourage you to make it clear, not that you didn't do your best shot with what you had, so. - Yes, thank you for that feedback, yeah. - Little more background, this formula with single-family, multi-family, and commercial, it's been in place since '99.

2:13:07 I'm not aware of any district that has separated commercial to that level, but I would like to try, yeah. - Well, if I may, also when you come back, because then we'll have that one, and if everything goes like it normally goes here, there'll be this one or whatever, but it's better to go, okay, here's what it really is. And so I think your first trip out is just trying to hone it down as tight as you can to what it is. We don't know, you know, or the formula knows, or somebody knows, so. - This Commissioner Herron, just kind of that, you had mentioned that there was a reduction on if something was sprinkled or not sprinkled, but it's not in any of the proposals that we've seen. - District 10. - District 10, well, District 10, yes, but you had mentioned a 16% for the battleground district, that there was a 16%. - Correct, yes.

2:14:04 - Right, but I didn't, was that in the documentation that was provided? - No, that was left out of the CFP, so. - So the challenge then becomes, there may be even a legality challenge, because we're making a recommendation to council that has to be published, and it doesn't include all the information about the costs. So that there was no way, outside of you telling us, there was no way to know that there was a 16% reduction. So that actually kind of, I think, might violate a law for public disclosure. So some of that stuff gets obviously really important from that standpoint. And again, same comments of, I mean, I like the numbers, they drop in a little bit, but a breakdown, you know, it doesn't look like we'll get a disco, but on how we want to look at that,

2:15:04 and some of that's a policy decision, like you have a massive distribution center. Do we want to charge them a big fire impact fee or not charge them a big fire impact fee? Maybe we do, because they don't produce, maybe necessarily the jobs that we want, but that's a policy decision. But from a fire service standpoint, I think it would be valuable information to have for the policy makers. - Thank you. - This is Commissioner LaDuke-Montgomery, kind of coming back to the overarching issue of planning for growth as part of this comprehensive plan. I noticed that you mentioned, you know, locating a new fire station, 64, to help serve the growth. And then you also identified that some of the existing service items weren't quite meeting the goals of like 90%, like the turnout time or first arriving unit. So I was wondering if you could speak to how these impact fees, I guess, would address,

2:16:03 like if they're solely needed because there's growth, or if it's because there's certain service issues already in place, and just maybe discuss some of that, since we're here talking about future growth planning. - Yeah, there are, you know, we, at District 6, we have a few geographical challenges, and so we currently don't meet all of our benchmarks in certain corners of our district. Those corners include that area of 179th in the kind of northeastern corner of our district. We do have great mutual aid agreements. We actually share a fire station with Clark Cowlitz Fire and Rescue at the West Precinct, or Public Safety Center on 179th, and we share that fire station there, respond one third of the time. Clark Cowlitz responds another third, or two thirds of the time, excuse me. As we experience, that's our primary growth corridor for Fire District 6, one of our largest growth areas, and as we see the infill, we are seeing the impact of the call volume in that area,

2:17:03 and so we will need, eventually, a fire station on the east side of I-5, near the 179th corridor at some point, as growth continues. - Thank you. So would you say the fees are to help, in addition to future growth, are they picking up, are we using it to kind of backfill our lagging or underservice area for what, like are we backfilling a little bit? - No, we meet our, we have a nine minute standard in that area, and we do meet the nine minute standard. We don't meet our best practice, which is a six minute standard in that area, which we would like to meet, and as infill gets there, and as we kind of zone that as urban in our response area, which is kind of the majority of the rest of our area, we want to meet that six minute standard, and so as the growth in the infill continues in that area,

2:18:00 then we're gonna need an additional fire station. - Any other questions or comments, or a motion? - I'll check that, I gotta let the people know. - So for those online, if you are interested in providing comment, please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your phone to let us know you would like to provide comment. Nobody is raising their hand, nobody in the hearing room who would like to provide comment either, so we will close the public comment for this agenda item as well. - Okay, with the public comment portion closed, I will bring it back for any discussion. - Bishop Barco. - I'm sorry. - Go ahead, Rick. - No.

2:18:59 - Please. - No, I was just going to point out, in the formula for commercial district three versus district 10, if I got my numbers right, district three was looking at 2.5 million square foot of commercial building, and in district three, sorry, I've got this right, district six, looking at four and a half million square feet, so they're able to divide their same capital by a lot more square footage in their future planning, so I think that's one reason that their number is looking better to us. Yeah. - Thank you. - I'd like to make a motion for CPZ 2025-000-11 Clark County Fire District six,

2:19:56 that I move to follow staff recommendation and approve. - Do we have a second? - Commissioner Halbert, I'll second that motion. - We have a motion and a second. Jeff, could we get a roll call, please? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfold. - Aye. - Kyle Fadness. - No. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Caroon. - No. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Five, two. - Motion passes, with that we'll move to CPZ 2025-000-10. Wait, check that, I'm on the wrong one. Let me get 10 out, I just repeated the same one. Here we go, CPZ 2025-000-12,

2:20:56 Clark County Fire District 10, Capital Facilities Plan Impact Fees. Sorry, Mark, Mark, go ahead. - Thank you very much. Thank you very much for catching again. And my part will get quicker as we move along here. So District 10 for CPZ 2025-000-12, similar analysis, criterion A, criterion B, similar structure of the plan, staff found that it met all the core criteria to recommend approval. District 10 is the district in the North County, serves approximately 12,500 people, but serves 85 square miles, includes Amboy, Chilachi, Farger Lake, Green Mountain, and View.

2:21:53 The primary difference that we've already alluded to in previous discussions and what you'll see as we scroll down to the grid here or the table is that District 10 chose to break out their analysis in a more nuanced way. It was their prerogative to do so, and we talked about this a little bit in the work session. They not only broke out between sprinkled and non-sprinkled, but also for the standard formula approach and then the growth share method. The Chief Brooks is on the line, he's been monitoring.

2:22:47 And so I'm hoping that he is still there and able to discuss his plan in a little more detail. Beyond that, I just think that I would add that the comments that were just being made about the differences in population and the types of buildings are very much amplified with District 10. And so you see numbers that are quite a bit different from the other districts, but that's because they have a different demographic and a totally different type of construction that they're seeing. With that, I don't have anything to add other than we also recommend approval with this plan, hearing all the comments that have been made thus far. And I'll answer any questions I can, but we have the two chiefs that have already spoken

2:23:47 sitting here listening, and we have Chief Brooks online, I'm hoping. - Chief Brooks, are you online? - Yes, I am. - Oh, good, thank you for waiting, appreciate it. - I'll wait until Chief North speaks, too. - Oh, okay, thanks. Let's see, do we have any questions for staff? - This is Commissioner Haroon. Standard method versus gross share method, what's the difference? And I didn't quite understand the difference, and then which one is staff recommended? - I would ask the chief to explain that because they're responsible for the math and the analysis in their plan. - And I would actually prefer to defer to Chief Groen. He has a far better understanding of this. Our plan was created after theirs,

2:24:44 so we had some opportunity to build on the work that they had done. We chose, because our numbers are lower, much more population, it was a little easier to include this. And unfortunately, I'm at a family reunion in Southern Oregon that was planned a year ago, so here I am and don't have access to all the documentation, and I can't read the screen without my glasses, and I'm not sure if the glare is worse or my blindness is worse, so bear with me. The different methods are based on the changes in the demographic of our area, and I think that we're much different

2:25:43 than the other districts in that, until recently, we were essentially an all-volunteer district, and as our call volume has grown, we have not been able to keep up with any kind of reasonable response with an all-volunteer staff, so we are changing rapidly. I was hired in '98 to deal with paperwork. We hired our first career full-time firefighters in 2017, so relatively new, and I have hired three times that many since then. We are in the process of having a new station design. In the time period that we're looking at,

2:26:42 we've had about four new single-family dwellings per year, a few years ago, we had 29 permits in a single year, and then as the economy has changed, that number has dropped off drastically. That's just the reality of our district. There has been no multi-family permits issued, and no new commercial buildings built in our district, but the difference between growth share and standard, I really can't speak to exactly, I work, like I say, with Chief Drone to calculate those. - Chief Drone, can you explain that? - Yes, this is Chief Drone.

2:27:38 So all of our methods, save district 10, is the growth share method, so what that does, when we're talking about the response by land use, it also incorporates the growth for that type of land use, be it single-family, multi-family, or commercial into the response. Those are factored in together to make sure that one is in pain more than the other should be. - Which one is being recommended? - I can't speak for district 10, but for the rest of the districts, it's the growth share method that you'll see in our CFPs. - Any questions? - Yeah, oh, part catching here.

2:28:35 Chief Brooks, did you have, did you want the entire table adopted as your fees, or were you offering an alternative to the-- - Commission. - So we had one of the members of our board of commissioners recently built a home. He is retired from federal service. He's had property in the area all his life, built a home, and he was a little shocked by the fact that he was paying school impact fees as someone that is not, his kids, his grandkids don't live in our area and don't use our schools. He lives on a private road and he was shocked that he was paying county road fees, impact fees.

2:29:33 And so our preference would be to use the less expensive. And we just are really shocked by the numbers that work out because we're such a small district and our board of commissioners would actually, they wanted to keep the formulas intact in the fees, but they wanted to take the option of reduce our, reducing our fees by 50%. Just, you know, yes, a $15.2 million building, these fees are a very, very small drop in the bucket of paying for that. But, you know, this is a number that the new resident is going to have to amortize over the life of their mortgage. So, you know, we feel that in the time that they're paying this,

2:30:31 we are also going to be collecting bond funds and other fees for them. So yeah, we would like to take the standard method and then reduce that by half to include, to cover those costs. And I've written a letter and provided to staff that states that. - Yes, that letter came in just this afternoon. It was emailed to the planning commission and it's in the record. - So I don't cry for this. - So if we look at the standard method, are we saying those numbers are reduced by half? Is that correct? - The gross share method. - Excuse me, the gross share method is reduced by half? Which one's reduced by half? - No, the standard method creates a lower fee and we would prefer to do that. - And then you sent in a letter today, are you reducing the standard method by half?

2:31:30 - That is correct. - The gross share method is cheaper. - Oh. - The title, I'm looking standard method. - All right, you're talking about the non-sprinkler or the sprinkler? - No, they're both. - 163 versus 168 on the single, 556. Oh, that is cheaper on the multi, but you're not gonna have very many multifamily units. - We don't have any. - Well, so, okay. - I was looking at the screen here. - But I think he's saying there's not really gonna be the same type of growth in multifamily or commercial, it's gonna be mostly single family. And so it's cheapest for single family under the standard method. And then cut that 163 in half, is that correct?

2:32:26 - Straight 50% is what they are proposing and that's within their prerogative to do that, that's my understanding. - So for clarification, we're talking about the standard method, we cut that in half, and that is what is being asked of us right now. - Yes, yes, and thank you for talking it through with us. And Chief Brooks, just to clarify, you would want both the option of sprinkled and un-sprinkled because of your district's rural wildland and urban interface issues. You want that included, so both sprinkled and un-sprinkled tables? - Yes, that is accurate. - Okay, I just wanted to clarify that for the record. - Sprinklers are huge and I think we should do more as a community to encourage that. I put sprinklers in my house myself

2:33:23 and I guarantee I did not spend anywhere near $20,000, but it is worth every penny. It's just a worthwhile safety feature for our customers. - This is Commissioner Berghold, and Chief, I hear what you're saying and that's a great thing to cut in half. As commission members, what I'm seeing is we've got printed, you know, that was presented, the standard, the growth, you know, those four tables right there. And that's what the staff used to, you know, identify the criteria, whether it passed or failed. And we don't have anything number wise to pass. We have a concept to pass.

2:34:19 So I'll look to maybe Carl, Ron. - I think we have a letter that was submitted today that spoke to that, that's correct, right? - Does it have the numbers on it? - Percentage, the percentage, 50%. - Do we wanna do the math really quick? Like I think the first one would round up to like 82 cents. - Another option, commissioners, this is part, is we could do the math and put it in the recommendation that would be very quickly turned around, that would just be mechanical. So no discretion from your motion. - Okay. - I'm just offering that as an option. - So I just wanna make sure that we word it so that it's actually feasible and, you know, substantiated. - So this is commissioner Herman, we're looking at, well, I'm looking at two things and we have the standard and the growth share

2:35:19 and the numbers not on the single family, but on the multifamily and the commercial are pretty different between the growth share and the standard method. And then subsequently, even if we're taking those and reducing them by 50%, we're still by far the most expensive of any of the proposals that we've seen. And I, I don't know, what's that? No, okay, so I don't know, I think that's kinda my, I mean, we're still at a pretty, pretty high numbers. I think one of the challenges, obviously, when you don't have scale, right? You don't have the residences. And then you're in an area, love my district 10 folks, but they're probably a little more anti-tax than my downtown Vancouver crew down here.

2:36:17 And so it gets disproportionate where we're seeing, you know, $4,500 impact fees. Or now it'd be 2,400, but I mean, the calculation puts it at 4,500, you know. So, yeah. - If I interject on the same thing, can you explain why they're higher like that, that much higher? - I think if you go back and look at the formulas, it's solely based on how much you split that up amongst all of the population. It's just, we have the very, the same types of needs. You know, we have over the 25 or 20 year life of the comprehensive plan,

2:37:14 we have a need for a total of, two additional fire stations. And our current main station needs to be replaced. Part of that is, you know, updating it to meet current needs, but about a third of that is attributable to growth. And because you're taking and you're splitting that very large number amongst fewer people, it just creates a larger per person ask. - Is the percentage the same, what we're asking from the development as the other formulas that we've looked at? - I think his is 33%. Correct me if I'm wrong, Gordon. - I believe it was 31% off the top of my head. You know, it's been a couple of years since we-- - Is it 31% of the total cost or is it 31% of the--

2:38:17 Yeah, what is-- - 31% of the total cost is borne by growth. That's off the top of my head, you know. - And then do they rep, is that a 31% like, and how much are we anticipating the growth to be? Is that a 10% growth of the population? - It's approximately three and a half percent per year. And that's traditional call volume growth numbers for us since we started tracking it when I started in 1988. - Do we have the copy of that formula? Are you getting right now? - Planning commissioners, this is Oliver Diaco. I think on the capital facilities plan that the district submitted.

2:39:15 I believe the planning commission has a copy of that. If you look on page 11 and we can put that up, I think you see the total portion attributed to new growth is 31%. So the shift is correct. Okay, that makes sense. Any other comments or questions? Okay. - I do have a question. I guess I wanna come back to you, Jack, about the idea that you were thinking this is a much higher fee. Is that on a per square foot basis that you've decided that this was so high? - Yeah, I mean, we had, if we go back to the fee schedule,

2:40:14 I don't know if we can flip that back up. There we go. So under, well, and this is kind of where I get the gross share method and I wanted a better understanding between the two methods 'cause they were talking about having the standard method versus the gross share method and I just didn't understand really what a standard method was versus a gross share. And that was kind of one of my questions. And then why, because the gross share method is less outside of the single family, except for the single family, but it's significantly less than commercial, significantly less than multifamily. And then, so I guess I didn't understand the two different methodologies and then why we would just go to the standard method and you're having the multifamily,

2:41:13 but you're still at like 2,400 on a multifamily and you're still at about 50, about 60 a square foot on the commercial buildings, right? Am I doing my math right? And so, yeah, that's, I guess that's kind of why I was trying to understand why we're looking at the standard versus the gross share, I think would be my first question. - Frankly, I was looking at, again, thinking that my district is substantially single family homes. While we do have some people that run home-based businesses, those don't get charged impact fees because they have an existing family home and then they add a business in their bar. And so, while they do pay for permit fees,

2:42:10 they don't have an impact fee because it's an existing occupancy at the time. And so, if you look at it, we just aren't having the new multifamily units, not receiving those kinds of things out there. And so, we want to do what we can to make sure to reduce those costs. Like you pointed out, our district is more conservative than the rest of the county and that's a fact of life. And so, we want to do what we can to match that. I personally am leaning more conservatively. I fit in out now and that's why I live there. And so, I understand, I feel their pain. This was something that we discussed at length

2:43:09 with our staff and when we talked through it, we reached begrudging agreement that we should pursue impact fees. The board of commissioners looks at the money and we look at what it's going to cost and we feel compelled to get the people that are moving into the district to pay their fair share. Like I said, Southern Oregon right now, my family has lived in this area since the 1850s. I think that it's important that when new people come into this area, they pay a fair proportion of the infrastructure that my family built. Impact fees are very, very small way to do that.

2:44:05 - So chief, this is Chair Johnson-Tuck. I'm just for my simple mind and I actually live up with the same people you live by. So, if I take your standard method and cut that in half, that's, what's that number gonna be? Well, we'll do the single family homes price per square foot is 82 cents if we cut it in half. If I go across and I realize we're a different district, but I'm comparing three other districts at single family residents of 791, 992 and 654. And so if I take a unit price, that's why I was trying to take the unit price and cut that in half, that's like 22,000 and something, can you tell me why those are so different? I understand we're in a different district,

2:45:05 but why are they so different? - Because you're spreading that impact amongst far fewer people. - So it is that much of a difference? - Yes, these numbers worked out that they crunched out through the formulas just based sheerly on math. - Okay, one other question. When you initially did this for us and we went through work session with these numbers, and then with your board and then you came back and it's 50% less, how do I come to terms with all of a sudden it's 50% less? Why were you able to do that? - We're not able to, it's not an ability thing, it's just a choice, we look at it and we're trying

2:46:05 to think about the impact that it would have been on us and be fair to the new people coming in. They shouldn't bear the sole cost and they won't, but this gives them a little bit to become new individuals into the community. And we had talked earlier about the affordable housing, I believe that state code actually addresses that where people that meet the standard for affordable housing and off the top of my head for Clark County that works out to a home valued initial sale price at under 450,000 for single family residents, there is language in state code that allows them to get a rebate for that and they can apply for that

2:47:04 within five years of getting the house built. - At the same time, there's a bond up there, we're voting on a bond up there, is that correct? - That is correct, we're asking for-- - Is that in, and the things that we saw here, was that the fire station we were talking about in the $6 million or was that something separate? - Well, if you look at the first line item, when we produced this in 2024, the estimated cost of that station was $12 million. So it has the estimates, the building environment is gonna approximately 20%, our current estimate is 15.2, that works out to fund that at about 45 cents per thousand. - Okay, thank you.

2:48:02 - And that is purely inflation, our costs of doing business. We had, we've acquired the property over the last 20 years or so. So that's no property acquisition, that is solely the cost of designing and constructing the building. - Okay, thank you. Do we have any other questions or comments? - Question for staff, knowing that the law changed and there's allowable ADUs in the rural area, would these impact fees be associated with the building of an ADU?

2:48:49 - Good question, I know that the current county policy is to reduce ADU costs, I believe it's by 70%. Yeah, they're about, so if this fee were to go in and addressing that new bill,

2:49:18 council have directed that we do update our code post plan adoption, so I don't know when that will go into effect. So when it goes into effect and the council still maintains that 70% reduction for ADU, I know that will be applicable when someone comes in for that. - Thank you. - So comment for the commission, just using the standard method with the 50% reduction that was discussed, looking at the idea that I believe the original number, looks like it was 2,800 square foot home, just dividing the 163 into the 4,569.

2:50:16 For the purposes of getting something baseline, if I use that same 2,800 number for fire district three, that makes it 35 cents a square foot compared to the 82. If I look at 10, no, sorry, district six, they're at 28 cents per square foot, just to try and keep apples to apples. This is one of the things, gentlemen, I was trying to get at from the standpoint of making it easy for people to understand the story. We can go with a lump sum number for everybody or per square foot number for everybody, but I think in the context of comparison, then they're gonna wanna know what size dwelling are we kind of referring to with the lump sum in reference as an average. So I think based on the location

2:51:16 and the difficulty of the terrain, looking at also their call volume, looks like they're very close to 70, 80% of medical for long distances. It has the appearance to me that the biggest opportunity for service for this particular district is in the concept of those same types of numbers that we discussed with district six and the idea of what's the response time. This is the level of service that I think people understand and appreciate in the concept of what are we striving for? What's the goal? So having those numbers available, I think is super helpful towards the idea of selling the message and what's going on. That all being said, I guess what I see is

2:52:11 it's not comparable from the other districts, but perhaps it's relatively fair for the district. And that's my statement on this. - Yeah, this is LaDuke Montgomery, and that's kind of what I've been grappling with is I understand the numbers and population and breaking out service calls and things, but how do you qualitatively measure someone out in Shellache that is facing wildfire risk versus someone in Vancouver? I don't think that's more of a risk, right? And then needing to cover mileage. And so I haven't seen clearly how that gets grappled with other than maybe through the discussion and the specific line item asks of what the money's gonna be spent towards to facilitate that type of service. But that is something that in my mind is weighing towards voting to approve the request with the 50% reduction on residential single-family homes

2:53:10 because there's just a different level of risk, and including waiting for someone to get out to you coming from Amboy. Fortunately, I live a block away, but many people don't. And so it just seems like that's a different type, like you're saying, Mr. Barka, fair for this district, but not every district is gonna have those same types of issues. Any other comments? Just a clarification. So is there a unit price? Are we voting on a unit price or a price per square foot? Was the unit price just an example and it's based on a price per square foot because the other districts are unit prices? We can make the motion to do it. However, the motion needs to be tailored. The biggest thing I wanna make sure was that we read into the motion, the 50%. - I understand that. I just didn't-- - You could say it however you want. I mean, whatever makes sense.

2:54:10 - I'm trying to understand what they were proposing. If they're like a 10,000 square foot house would be $4,500, or a 2,800 square foot house would be $4,500, or they want the 10,000 square foot house to be $12,000.

2:54:28 - Well, we don't have a typical house. We do have a price per square foot, which would seem to be more specific and exact. That's my take. - I guess I'm asking the fire chief, like what were you guys, what was your thought there? Is it a unit price or a price per square foot? - To tell you the truth, two years ago is a long time. And you know, I truly do not remember what it is based on. Again, I would defer to chief drone and see how that is intended or to staff. And like I say, we went through this process. We started more than two years ago. And I really don't know. - This is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. I think if you run the numbers like on growth share method,

2:55:28 the 4714, and then the price per square foot of 1.68 works out to what a 2,800 square foot home would be. So maybe it's based on a 2,800 square foot home. This is what the total would be, and this is what the price per foot is. - Right, I guess my clarification, 'cause it's like I'm building a house. You know, I have a barn or my shop, and we're at price per square foot. I'm at the counter with county staff, and one staff member's telling me it's based on total square footage, and another person's telling me that it's just based on inhabitable space. So I would like some clarification on what we're recommending. - This is chief drone, I completely understand. I'm not exactly sure on this plan. I don't think I got to see this particular page. Maybe is the letter more specific that he sent? - No, that's not, the letter is just a 50% reduction.

2:56:25 I just don't remember what we did. I believe the 2,800 square foot house is an example, and the formula outputs a price per square foot, but I can't guarantee that that is accurate.

2:56:49 In my mind, I would think the impact is based on each individual structure, like single family residence would be a unit price, multi-family would be a unit price, 'cause you typically adore commercial. I understand where it's a square footage price, because you can have a 500 square foot commercial and a 10,000 or 100,000 square foot commercial, right? So that would make sense to me that there's a price per square foot for commercial and unit prices on the homes, but that, yeah. - And I will, I'm sorry, Chief Drone again here. If it's District 10's intent to be in line with the way the other districts have proposed this, it would be a unit price for single and multi-family and a per square foot price for commercial? - If you would word your motion to that, I would happily accept it that way.

2:57:47 - This is Oliver. I agree with the Chief. That's what I wanted to add, that most of our prices are on unit price, and we would recommend assuming the Chief Fire District 10 agrees that we leave single family and multi-family at the unit price and for commercial, go for per square footage. - With a 50% reduction. - Yes. - In fact, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me. - Any more discussion on this? - I just wanted to clarify. I read the letter to mean a 50% reduction on single family units. Only, is that correct? - I would hope that it should be applied to everything. - Okay, thank you. - Do we have a, oh.

2:58:47 (laughing) I'll put it to those online. If you're interested in providing public comment, please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your phone. Nobody is doing so, and there's nobody in the hearing room who is wishing to provide public comment, so we will go ahead and close public comment for this agenda item. - Moving forward with the public comment part closed, I would, either any more discussion or a motion and a second. For fire district 10, with said changes. - Mr. Chair. - Mr. Duke, Montgomery, also. I've moved to approve item CPZ 2025-00012, fire district number 10, capital facilities plan, adopting the district's proposed standard method calculations

2:59:45 for fire impact fees, both for no sprinkler and with sprinkler on the per unit price for single family homes and multifamily home units and per square foot for commercial buildings with a 50% discount applied to all three of those as calculated in the district submission. - This is Commissioner Burke, I second that. - We have a motion and a second. Jeff, can we get a roll call, please? - Ryan Albert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfel. - Aye. - Kyle Thadness. - No. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Caroon. - No. - Alicia LaDuke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Five, two. - Motion passes. - So we move on from 10, fire district 10.

3:00:45 I got all my paperwork mixed up here. We did three, right. - This will be Clark. Clark. - Clark out, sorry, thank you. Okay, we're doing next up, BART CPZ 2025-00013. Clark Cowlitz, fire rescue and capital facilities plan. Is there a chief on the line for that? - Hopefully, John Noor is still online, yep. - I'm here, thank you. - Oh, thanks, John. Thanks for staying. - Yep. - Absolutely, thank you guys for staying. - So just taking our same approach as before, the structure of the findings are the same. The structure of the district plan is very similar to district three and district six.

3:01:41 And this is a, Clark Cowlitz, to remind you, is the district up for Lecenter, Ridgefield, Woodland, also the Cowlitz reservation, Meadowglade, Charter Oak, parts of the fairgrounds, Duluth, Dollers Corner, so a lot of areas, and it serves a population of, it's a size of 125 square miles, so that's the largest of the districts, and it serves 51,000 at the time of writing the plan. Jeff, if you could just scroll down to the table on this one. They took the simpler approach as the other ones, for, as district three and district six did. You'll see the proposed prices are 654 for single family, 308 for multi-family, and 63 per square foot for commercial.

3:02:38 So the lowest out of all of them, again, that's just what the formula produced, and with that, I would recommend approval as stated in the staff report, and be open for any questions for myself or Chief Knorr. - Do we have any questions for Chief Knorr, or staff? - This is Ms. Ludwig Montgomery, and I was just wondering, 'cause I saw, again, looking at some of the response times, and things that are being met now, the performance now compared to the 90% kind of goal aspiration, is the impact fee requested, you think, sufficient to close the gap between the numbers that we are seeing for current performance and the aspirational goal? - It will help. It will help in that, part of it is this is a 20 year,

3:03:36 we try to look out 20 years, and every few years, we gotta go in and say, okay, where are we at today, compared to where we were two years ago, or periodically, and then where we're gonna be 20 years from now. So yes, it assists because it helps build fire stations. So in the plan, I propose a need for two fire stations, one east of I-5, one west of I-5. The one on the east side is going to be probably in the 15th year, because development will happen more slowly there than it's happening on the west side. And one of the things to consider also is the commissioners wanted to charge the same fee across the entire area, and so we have three cities and a significant portion of unincorporated county in there. So the cities have more growth, potentially more growth, because they're allowed to grow under GMA rules. However, we have a big section at the southern end of our district that is in the Vancouver

3:04:35 urban growth boundary, so it's allowed to develop, even though it's an unincorporated county. So we have a lot of development coming along the I-5, along 179 to 219, and that's a long answer to your short question, will this help us meet our times? It will help offset the cost of purchasing more fire engines and building two fire stations to be able to meet the times. - This is Commissioner Roon, did your district cover the tribal lands, is that correct? - We, yeah, it's a sovereign nation. We have no ability to tax them. We have a contract with them, they pay $455,000 a year for fire and emergency medical service response there, but they don't, and they have gifted us things. They secured a fire engine several years ago through a federal grant that was only open to tribes, and they have gifted us three ambulances, which was a significant savings

3:05:34 that we would have had to purchase, and so a savings to all the taxpayers in the district. - All right, are you able to get full cost recovery from servicing the tribal lands? - It's very hard to calculate, because there is not an assessed value on their properties, and in the fire service, we don't really build it, we don't give you a cost per call, because there's a lot of things that go into that. Again, it's a negotiation with them, because you take a 14-story hotel on the other side of the freeway, and the county's gonna assess the value on that, and we say, we'd like to collect $1.50 per thousand, and we know exactly what the bill is. We don't know the value of their hotel, because they don't have to disclose it to us. So it's a negotiation, and each year when some new properties and new development comes on, we come to a new price on that.

3:06:32 - So I guess the gist of my question is like, are these impact fees subsidizing development on the Callis tribe? - So no, thank you, thank you for clarifying. We're in our contract with the tribe every year, we come back and renegotiate based on any new properties that came on during that time. So they pay a new fee based on the new properties, the new development that happens on their properties. So for example, they're doing some remodeling inside, even though it's inside the building, it's further development within the structure, we'll come back and say that's a new fee. So no, this would not be subsidizing their development. - Yeah, I think just for clarity, I think you've answered it, but my fear would be that we need an extra fire engine

3:07:31 to service the Callis tribe. However, the only way to collect that is through our impact fee mechanism on that. So I wanted to make sure that our impact fee calculation isn't being encumbered or collared by additional services provided to the tribe. - It is not. - Any other questions? Skid, let's bring public comment into this. - All right. - All right, for those online, if you're interested in providing public comment, please raise your virtual hand or press star three on your phone to let us know you would like to provide public comment. Nobody is expressing that they would like to provide public comment.

3:08:31 There's nobody in the hearing room. So we'll go ahead and close public comment for the last agenda item. - Once again, with the public part closed, bring it back for any discussion from the Planning Commission. - Oh, this is Commissioner LaDuke Montgomery. I think one thing that gives me a little pause on this request compared to some of the others is just what is attributable to new growth versus existing deficiencies. But obviously Ridgefield is growing or there's no question that there is growth, but some of the growth projections seem more aggressive or the increase in demand plus the gap between how they're doing now in calls for service or the different measurements compared to that 90% benchmark was larger than some of the others. But I think I'm still coming down in favor of supporting, providing better service 'cause there's obviously a growth demand in that jurisdiction.

3:09:29 - Just a brief comment. I have no understanding whatsoever how this district ended up with Meadowglade. How could something like that happen? - So the district was formed in 1961. The city of battleground was a very small little spot on the map back then. And the district line basically goes along 179th Avenue over to Salmon Creek and follows Salmon Creek over to Northeast 132nd Street. And then as the city of battleground annex different areas away, the district became smaller. But so Meadowglade, District 3 and District CCFR butted up against each other

3:10:26 and the city of battleground annex areas away. So that's how Meadowglade is all the way over there. Those boundaries were established 65 years ago. - Let's see if we can fix that. - I would love to see, that's a whole other discussion but in my opinion, there's too many fire departments and not enough firefighters in this County. So if we can find some way to bring some departments together, have fewer chiefs and more firefighters it would serve everyone better. - All right, thank you. - Thank you. I would take a motion if that's appropriate. - Commissioner Bergfold and I'd like to make the motion because Chief John, that's my fire department. So yeah, I'd make a motion that we approve the capital facilities plan for Clark Cowlitz Fire Rescue. - Commissioner Halbert, I'd like to second that motion.

3:11:26 - Jeff, we have a motion and a second. Can we get a roll call please? - Brian Halbert. - Aye. - Mark Bergfold. - Aye. - Kyle Thadness. - No. - Ron Barca. - Aye. - Jack Haroon. - No. - Olishua Duke Montgomery. - Aye. - Carl Johnson. - Aye. - Five, two. - Motion passes. Quick comment, Chief Dron, thank you for staying for every and hearing everything because it's new to us and you kind of got thrown on the bus. And the other thing is sometimes you guys, I know everyone, you know, when the fires are there and thank you for your service, thank you for your service but they don't talk about much being at a planning commission meeting at 10 o'clock at night. So thank you for your service as it pertains to what you did tonight 'cause it was an education too. So I appreciate it anytime you guys wanna come in and yeah, anytime so. - Sir, could I make one comment? - Yeah. - Because I was not, I wasn't there so I got my notebook

3:12:26 in front of me, I've made the extensive notes of a lot of what you were asking. And because these plans seem to be updated periodically, I'm gonna work with Chief Dron, Chief Russell and Chief Brooks to say, how can we put together better plans that meet your needs as well as the needs of our community? So yeah, everybody asked a lot of good questions today and this is new to us also and we just wanna make sure we're serving the community right but can show why there's that need and how this works. So thank you for all the feedback you guys gave us today also. - Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you. - Thank you Chief. Thank you guys. - Commissioner, I just wanna say again, thank you guys. There's nothing like when we call 911 and hearing that siren in the distance, the no helps coming, it's huge for us. I want you to understand that my no votes aren't a no vote against the fire district. If you put a ballot in front of me for my house taxes

3:13:25 for the new fire engine for the thing, yes. I just don't think this is the right mechanism because I think there's a lot of other implications and I can go policy forever on how impact fees are affecting the cost of affordability. So please don't take that as not a supporter of firefighters but it's a policy decision. - With that said, is there any unfinished business? Any new business? Oliver. - Yes, planning commissioners. Let me ask Jeff to put up the next schedule for you. Just as an update, you may have received individual emails from Jeff about the upcoming work sessions and hearings before the planning commission. So if I'm not mistaken, I think you have another work session

3:14:23 July 30th and Jose, help me here so that we can see when the hearing begins. I believe your hearing begins August 6th? - Yeah. So we have a work session and a hearing? - Yeah, no, I don't think Jose, go ahead. I'm not seeing it very well, go ahead. - Jose Alvarez, community planning. So the hearing begins August 20th. We have a work session July 30th and then August 6th. So materials will be ready 15 days before. So the August 5th and the hearing will be August 20th. And then we have deliberations for the third if we can't get through in the one evening. - Okay.

3:15:22 Well, thank you guys for doing everything. You're keeping us straight. We're trying to get through it. And I know it's been a portion, it is what it is. - Yep. - So tonight was a good one. With that said, is there anything else for the good of the order? All right, we're adjourned. - Thank you.