As the concrete jungle of our city continues to spread its branches, so does the discussion over how to fund the green spaces we desperately cling to for a breath of fresh air. In a recent turn, the Parks, Trails, and Environment Committee (PTE) sat down to unravel the tangled issue of Parkland Dedication Fees. Rudy Karimi of District 14 Park and Recreation, breaking down the dense foliage of policy for us laypeople, elucidated that there's a not-so-small debate simmering over the fee structure for multifamily units, specifically those with a couple of bedrooms or more.
According to Karimi's social media post, some committee members are arguing, seemingly to cut costs for developers, to drop the proposed fee down to $1,016 per dwelling, from a heftier staff recommendation of $1,355 per unit. They seem to purport that this move would encourage the sprouting of family-sized housing. Developers, on the other hand, calculate their bedroom mix with a focus on market demand and financing, not the slight ticks on a park fee meter. With the cost of building shooting sky-high, it's a drop in the ocean—or perhaps, a leaf in the park—compared to total construction costs, which are anything but pocket change.
But as Karimi rightly points out, under the rustling leaves of the current ordinance, the fee gap between one-bedroom and two-bedroom units is already creating a divide—$460 to be exact. This gap, far from encouraging a balanced growth of housing, has perhaps done little but widen the imbalance in our urban forest's housing canopy. The logical pruning here? Level the playing field entirely, align the rates, as Karimi and like-minded council members suggest, for both single and two-bedroom multifamily units.
