SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : New Park Fees Get Council’s Approval

The cost of building a new single-family home increased last week when the City Council voted unanimously to adopt a new park fee schedule.

The park fees jumped from $2,675 to $3,502 per unit for single-family homes.

Park fees for new apartments, condominiums and mobile homes decreased under the new schedule, however. The new rate will now be $2,472 per unit for condominiums and $1,959 per unit for new apartments and mobile homes.

Park fees are based on the demand new residential construction places on the city’s parkland, said Tom Tomlinson, the city’s planning manager. Because single-family homes bring more people into the community than apartments, mobile homes or condominiums, the city instituted a sliding scale that required different fees for different types of residential construction, Tomlinson said.

“Formerly, we charged a flat fee of $2,675 a unit for any residential construction,” Tomlinson said. “But we felt that wasn’t fair and this was a chance to adjust for that inequity.”

Park fees provide revenue for maintaining existing parks and purchasing existing parkland, Tomlinson said. While the fee schedule adopted this week was the first change in the park fees since 1983, the council also decided to re-evaluate the park fees on an annual basis.

The new fee schedule also reflects an increase in the appraised value of land in the city compared to land values when the last schedule was adopted in 1983. Since that time, the average fair market value of land jumped from $167,000 to $206,000 an acre, according to a city report.