An Analysis of Development Impact Fees Prepared for the City of Warwick

This research project was written to for the City of Warwick using methodology found in: A Practitioner's Guide to Development Impact Fees by James C. Nicholas, Arthur C. Nelson, and Julian C. Juergensmeyer; Development Impact Fees Edited by Arthur C. Nelson, The Calculation of Proportionate-Share Impact Fees by James C. Nicholas, Development Impact published by the Urban Land Institute, the North Kingstown and South Kingston Development Impact Fee Reports and many other local and national sources as identified in the bibliography. This report is in conformance with the Rhode Island Development Fee Act (RI General Laws Chapter 45 §22.4). This report was written to assist in the enactment of development impact fees for the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. On February 10, 1999, the Warwick City Council passed resolution #PCR-26-99 requesting the Planning Department to study the feasibility of the implementation of an impact fee in the City of Warwick. The Growth Management Coordinating Council (GMMC) was later directed to review the possible implementation of a growth management fee in the City. On February 28, 2001, Warwick's Planning Director attended a GMMC meeting to review a draft report prepared y the Planning Department last dated 10-10-2000 (the Draft Report). At that meeting, the GMCC presented several preliminary comments in written form and asked many questions of the Planning Department. Due to the number of issues raised at that meeting, GMMC voted to form a Subcommittee to provide additional comments to the Draft Report. This report is the final document that was created for the GMMC. Impact fees are being proposed for five capital facility programs: recreation land, open space, law enforcement, elementary schools, and fire protection. (High school and junior high school impact fees were researched but were deemed inappropriate considering the excess capacity existing in the Warwick high and junior high school system at this time). City standards were determined for recreation facilities, city owned preserved open space, elementary schools, fire, and law enforcement facilities. Fees were then developed that would allow the City standard to be maintained as the population increases.

This report was written to assist in the enactment of development impact fees for the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. On February 10, 1999, the Warwick City Council passed resolution #PCR-26-99 requesting the Planning Department to study the feasibility of the implementation of an impact fee in the City of Warwick. The Growth Management Coordinating Council (GMMC) was later directed to review the possible implementation of a growth management fee in the City.
On February 28, 2001, Warwick's Planning Director attended a GMMC meeting to review a draft report prepared y the Planning Department last dated 10-10-2000 (the Draft Report). At that meeting, the GMCC presented several preliminary comments in written form and asked many questions of the Planning Department. Due to the number of issues raised at that meeting, GMMC voted to form a Subcommittee to provide additional comments to the Draft Report. This report is the final document that was created for the GMMC. Impact fees are being proposed for five capital facility programs: recreation land, open space, law enforcement, elementary schools, and fire protection. (High school and junior high school impact fees were researched but were deemed inappropriate considering the excess capacity existing in the Warwick high and junior high school system at this time). City standards were determined for recreation facilities, city owned preserved open space, elementary schools, fire, and law enforcement facilities. Fees were then developed that would allow the City standard to be maintained as the population increases.
I would also like to thank Jared Rhodes for his early help in developing this project. Mark Caruollo for giving me the opportunity to continue working for the City of Warwick Planning Department and entrusting such an important research project solely on my shoulders. Dan Geagan for additional editorial and research assistance.
I would also like to thank my parents and family for continually supporting me through my ever continuing educational experience. Without their support and assistance I would have never made it this far, for which I thank them.

Introduction
The City of Warwick was founded January 12, 1642, when Samuel Gorton, and a dozen friends purchased more than 100 square miles of land from the Mahament Indians, a local branch of the great Nanhiganset Nation. These new settlers made their home in what today is referred to as Shawomet, or Old Warwick, at the head of the Old Warwick Cove. The City was reduced in land size by the loss of Coventry in 1741, and West Warwick in 1913. This left Warwick at half of its original size, or 50 square miles including water bodies. The settlement took its name "Warwick" in honor of the Earl of Warwick, who was instrumental in gaining an official charter in 164 7.
Today, Warwick is the second largest city in Rhode Island. The city is situated at the center of the state's super-highway system. Theodore Francis Green State Airport is located there and is the state's largest commercial air terminal. Two of the state' s three largest shopping malls are also located in Warwick. Warwick offers many educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities. The Knight Campus of Community College of Rhode Island, a state supported facility, is located in the western section of Warwick. Goddard Memorial State Park, one of the largest parks in Rhode Island is located in the Potowomut section of Warwick. The park offers picnic areas, accented with activities such as golfing and salt water bathing. Warwick's central location in Rhode Island as well as the easy access for air travel, has made the city a prime area for further industrial, commercial and population growth.

General Demographic Characteristics
The form of government for the City is a Mayor and a nine member City Council. On February 10, 1999, the Warwick City Council passed resolution #PCR-26-99 requesting the Planning Department to study the feasibility of the implementation of an impact fee in the City of Warwick. The Growth Management Coordinating Council (GMCC) was later directed to review the possible implementation of a growth management fee in the City. Impact fees for the City of Warwick were seen in the eyes of some politicians as an election platform, and a way to increase City revenue for the few remaining large undeveloped tracts of land in the City. The reason behind the issue of development impact fees becoming an election platform stemmed from the general understanding of impact fees as making "the new people have to pay". Impact fees are an easy political decision if looked at from the point of view that it does not cost existing residents (existing residents living and owning only their home in the municipality). The cost of impact fees is felt by large land owners who want to develop their land into subdivisions, or developers who in the eyes of most existing residents are not good for the better good of the municipality. It was questionable from the onset of this project of whether or not the City needed to enact an impact fee study and ordinance, and this led to some of the lack of determination on the part of the City to complete the project as the City Council did not allocate funds to have an independent consultant complete the project. Rather the project was placed in the hands of the Planning Department with very little support.
I was hired as an intern for the City of Warwick in November of 1999 to work on assorted Planning tasks throughout the Department. Prior to my hire, the City was trying to hire a consultant to perform the task of completing a needs assessment for development impact fees. The City Council denied the Department the funds necessary to hire a consultant to complete such an assessment, and ordered the Department to complete the needs assessment. Shortly after I was hired there was an administration change in the position of the Planning Director and the little momentum for the needs assessment in the Department was lost. A few months after working in the Department, the Planning Director gave the task to me to complete a development impact fee report. At that time, I had little understanding of development impact fees or how they were determined. I proceeded to research development impact fees and how they were applied nationally, regionally, and throughout the State of Rhode Island.
Over the next two years, I alone worked and completed the City of Warwick development impact fee report. The report would have taken less time if it was more of a priority project for the Department, but with little motivation from the City Council as a whole, and a staff that was always under pressure from other development projects in the City, the completion of the study did not receive a very high priority. The reasoning for this was that the development impact fee report was a priority of only one new member of the City Council, and the rest of the Council seemed to have other priorities at the time.
A development impact fee report was prepared for the City of Warwick using methodology found in: A Practitioner's Guide to Development Impact Fees by James C. Nicholas, Arthur C. Nelson, and Julian C. Juergensmeyer; Development Impact Fees Edited by Arthur C. Nelson, The Calculation of Proportionate-Share Impact Fees by James C. Nicholas, Development Impact published by the Urban Land Institute, the North Kingstown and South Kingston Development Impact Fee Reports and many other local and national sources as identified in the references of this report. This report is in conformance with the Rhode Island Development Fee Act ( This research project is compiled from information that was written in the final document that was created and submitted to the City of Warwick GMCC, completed solely by Jonathan Reiner.

Chapter Two
Review of Impact Fees

Problem Statement
As new homes are built in any municipality, there are associated impacts to the city or town from the development of these new homes. One way to offset these impacts is through the use of development impact fees . Impact fees are generally imposed as a condition for some approval to proceed with this development. The objective of impact fees is not merely to raise money; rather, the objective of impact fees is to ensure adequate capital facilities . Impact fees are established in order to provide a funding stream to ensure the development of adequate capital facilities by mitigating the costs of infrastructure and other impacts caused by development projects. Where capital facilities are not adequate, permitting development is contrary to the responsibility of a local government to protect public health, safety, and welfare. Therefore, a requirement that development proceed only when such adequacy is either attained or ensured is an act protecting the public from the harm that would occur in the absence of such facilities. Warwick. This paper will briefly define impact fees, trace their evolution in Rhode Island, and perform an in-depth study for the enactment of development impact fees for the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. This study will outline the process that a municipality could take to investigate the need for impact fees, what types of fees can/should be implemented, how these fees are determined, and what the next step are for the City of Warwick.

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to give a thorough background understanding of development impact fees in the State of Rhode Island, and to complete a development impact fee study for the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. Issues that will be identified in this study will include the basis for the impact fees, the motivations, need, costs and the political will.

Methodology
The study for the City of Warwick will be completed according to the State Enabling legislation for Development Impact Fees (CHAPTER 45-22.4, the RHODE ISLAND DEVELOPMENT IMP ACT FEE ACT) beginning with a needs analysis, examining the existing infrastructure in place, what the cost of that infrastructure was, and possible options for City officials to take in determining the types of impact fees that they wish to implement.

Value of the study
This study will give the City of Warwick a menu for selecting which types of fees could be established in the City of Warwick according to Rhode Island State law.

General Information
Impact fees are generally imposed as a condition for some approval to proceed with development. The objective of impact fees is not merely to raise money. Rather, the objective of impact fees is to ensure adequate capital facilities. Impact fees are established in order to provide a funding stream to ensure the development of adequate capital facilities by mitigating the costs of infrastructure and other impacts caused by development projects. Where capital facilities are not adequate, permitting development is contrary to the responsibility of a local government to protect public health, safety, and welfare. Therefore, a requirement that development proceed only when such adequacy is either attained or ensured is an act protecting the public from the harm that would occur in the absence of such facilities.
Impact fees can be developed for numerous capital City programs such as: parks and recreation, open space, schools, libraries, fire protection, potable water, solid waste, sewers, drainage, roads, public buildings, emergency medical service, law enforcement, and public cemeteries.
City standards need to be determined for those public facilities in which the city would like to enact development impact fees. Fees could then be developed that would allow the city standard to be maintained as the population increases.

How Impacts Fees Can Be Used
Impact fees collected can be used to pay: (a) The proportionate share of existing infrastructure that was constructed/developed with capacity beyond what is needed for the current population (if a pre-construction assessment was performed regarding future need); or (b) deposited in a receipt account to be used for future construction/development of infrastructure that will be available to the new population/development.
The fees deposited in such a restricted account can be used for planning, design, and construction of additions to existing facilities or proposed new public facilities in the designated category. They can also be used toward the purchase of capital equipment.

Rational Nexus
Impact fees may be used to pay for new facilities or the costs of existing public facilities.
In both cases, a direct relationship must be shown between the collection of an impact fee and a benefit to the payer. This is known as the rational nexus. If the impact fees are used for paying off existing facilities, the fee must be directly proportionate to the cost of providing facility capacity or service for that residential unit. Monies spent to enhance existing facilities or offset existing deficits are excluded from the impact fee calculation. Excess capacity can be demonstrated by developing a "city standard" of service for each facility.

City Standards
City standards for the adequate proportion of development need to be developed for some public facilities, and reassessed for others. For example: if a city currently has a population of 100,000 and there are 100 acres of open space, this would create 1 acre of open space per every 1,000 residents. The city would then have to calculate how much an acre of open space land will cost them, and what percentage each new development should pay towards keeping that "city standard". Also, the standard can be higher than the current rate, but the new development will only pay its proportional share of purchasing land that will bring the city to its desired standard.

Rhode Island Enabling Legislation for Impact Fees
Under pressure from the local building, real estate, smart growth and other land use interests, to have a unified system and standard for implementing and assessing development impact fees, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed CHAPTER 45-22.4, the RHODE ISLAND DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEE ACT, in July of2000. This Act defines the parameters of how fees were to be assessed, established, collected, and what factors they were to be based upon. The specific sections of the Act included: Legislative findings and intent, Definitions, Calculation of impact fees, Collection and expenditure of impact fees, Refund of impact fees, Compliance, Adoption of impact fees, and Severability. Each section clearly outlines the appropriate section of the Act, and what can and cannot be done by a municipality through the enactment of this Act.
Municipalities were given an eight year period for when impact fee dollars can be used, and up to twelve years if extenuating circumstances exist. The basis for the impact fees must be documented in the municipal comprehensive plan.

Time Frame for Using Fees
If no excess capacity exists, fees collected for future expansion of city facilities may be encumbered but Rhode Island law states that the fees must be used within eight (8) years of when collected. Where the expenditure or encumbrance of a fee is not feasible within eight (8) years, the City may retain impact fees for a longer period of time ifthere are compelling reasons for such longer period. In no case shall impact fees be retained longer than twelve (12) years. For example, if fees are collected for additional school facilities, those fees may be used for planning, design, or construction of the school within seven years of when they are paid. If the monies are collected for design of engineering of a school but the city for whatever reason did not undertake construction of the building in a timely manner, a refund of the fees collected may be required. The City is obligated to utilize such funds specifically for the facilities so designated. There is no portability of funds.

Dedicated Accounts for Fees
The City must establish restricted receipt accounts for impact fees. Each account is established for a specific impact fee category, recreation/open space, fire, police, and schools. Accounts would need to be reviewed on an annual basis.

Credit for Future Taxes
The impact fees to be developed may include a credit for future taxes that the new property owner will pay towards those items assessed in the impact fee. Examples of this would be what new residents will pay towards the provision of a service that they are paying through a bond. In the case of the City of Warwick, residents are currently paying in their taxes the cost of existing bonds costs. There are bonds currently in effect for the school, and fire department, recreation bonds and open space bonds. The fees listed in this report reflect the discounted fees.

Proposed Fees
The City of Warwick is currently proposing impact fees for the following uses: fire and rescue, police, elementary schools, recreation, and open space.

Fee Summary
The City will have to conduct a study on housing and building types, and the estimated cost that these have on the city. For schooling costs, this will be based on current population and the ratio of school children in each type of residential dwelling. Table 1 is a summary of the impact fees proposed by housing type. Demographic studies indicate that two-family and multi-family structures contain fewer school children per unit than three and four bedroom single family structures. Therefore, the proposed school impact fees for two family and multi-family residential units is one half and one quarter respectively of the school impact fees for single family units. 2 In the bond discount for the fees, the discount rate stays the same over a 20-year period. Therefore, a maximum amount of discount was added into the equation. The impact fee takes into account 20 years of bond payment at the same rate as what any other residents would pay. So every person who pays that impact fee has the rate of the bonds that also have impact fees on them have been subtracted from their impact fee. The fees were discounted to the maximum amount on all levels. The Planning Department felt that this would help the impact fee stand up legally if it was ever challenged.
The discount rate takes into account a constant rate for the percentage of property taxes paying off the bonds. Therefore, whereas a bond that was allocated in one time period has its rate drops over time, but for purposes of this impact fee, it was assumed that rate stays constant because the city will most likely bond for other items in that category. This discount rate is the reason why there is no school impact fee for two-family and multi-family houses.

Collection of Fees
The collection of impact fees must be reasonably related to the benefits accruing to the development paying the fees. All impact fees shall be assessed upon the issuance of a building permit or other appropriate permission to proceed with development and collected in full upon the issuance of a certificate of occupancy or other final action authorizing the intended use of a structure. This will allow the fee to be collected for all existing lots, recently subdivided lots, and future subdivisions. All fees apply Citywide and are non-negotiable unless other improvements are considered.

Link to Capital Improvement Program
The Capital Improvement Program (CIP) is the basis for any impact fee. Capital improvements proposed to be financed in full or in part with impact fees must be part of the City Capital Improvement Plan. Conversely, impact fees are incorporated among the revenue sources needed to finance the capital improvement plan. Impact fees may also become tools used to implement policies expressed in the City of Warwick's Comprehensive Plan.

Proportionate Share of Capital Costs
This approach to impact fee calculation is based on the premise that new development should not be permitted to impose a fiscal burden upon the community. Included within the premise is the proposition that a community cannot require new development to enrich it. Proportionality, given this premise, would mean that new development should pay amounts such that it did not impose any tax or fee increases upon the community. Again, it would follow that new development should be required to pay no more than this amount. Normally, new development will pay toward capital improvements in the form of general taxation, debt service payments, and user fees. The task is to calculate how much of capital costs are covered by these payments. Whatever is not paid for would then be paid through impact fees .
Seven factors should be considered in establishing a proportionate share of capital costs to be borne by new development. These factors are: 1. The cost of existing capital facilities; 2. The methods by which the existing capital improvements were financed; 3. The extent to which new developments have already contributed to the cost of the existing capital improvements; 4. The extent to which new developments will pay for existing capital improvements in the future through user fees, debt service payments, or other payments toward the cost of existing capital improvements; 5. The extent to which new developments are required to construct and/or dedicate capital improvements as conditions of development or construction approval; 6. Extraordinary costs, if any, in serving the new development; and 7. The time-price differentials inherent in fair comparisons of amounts paid at different times.
This is saying that due consideration must be given to what new development pays towards the costs of capital facilities that will be required 3 •

Offsets to Impact Fees
It is very common for developers to provide certain facility improvements or land dedications within the city. When such improvements are offsite and not for the exclusive use or benefit of the individual development, some consideration must be given to lowering the fees by the value of the improvements.

Recalculation of Fees on an Annual or Bi-Annual Basis
The impact fee program should be periodically updated as to assumptions, facility cost estimates, growth patterns and rates, demographic changes, and so on. It is recommended that during the preparation of the capital improvement program, the Planning Department annually review this report and recommend any adjustment in the fees, credits, projected costs of improvement, or projected growth patterns that are deemed necessary. This review could be done on a bi-annual basis but it is not recommended that the review be conducted any less frequently than every two years. Reviews any less frequent than this could potentially lead to the failure of this program standing up legally in court.

Estimating Annual Revenue
This will be based on the expected development impacts fees, and the rates of development that are expected in each fiscal year. In a typical year, approximately 127 single-family building permits are issued, multiply this by the amount of the impact fee ($1,876.61), and it comes to $238,329.47 each year. This is approximately what the City can expect to receive in impact fees each year for single family developments.

Adoption of Impact Fee Ordinances
The recommended procedure for implementation of the impact fee program is the creation of a need assessment determining the needed capital improvements, costs associated with these improvements, and the calculation of appropriate fees. Once this has been calculated it is necessary to adopt the plan and write an impact fee ordinance.
Simultaneously the Planning Board would need to amend the subdivision regulations to comply with the newly enacted ordinance. The municipal Comprehensive Plan will also have to be amended to reflect the need and basis for the development impact fees. The first steps would be for the City Council to approve this impact fee plan and forward the plan to the Planning Board to make changes to the Comprehensive Plan, draft an ordinance, and make changes to the Subdivision Regulations if necessary. The Comprehensive Plan changes are necessary to make the Plan consistent with the findings of this report. Once this has been completed, the Comprehensive Plan changes would be forwarded on to the City Council as well as the draft ordinance for adoption.
Any necessary adjustments to the fees would be adopted as part of the annual budget adoption process, and an annual review would need to be completed before the mayor submits a budget to the City Council.
Why have the impact fees? Impact fees are a way to raise money to build the infrastructure needed by the creation of new development. Each house will pay its fair share of adding to the burden that is placed on the city's infrastructure and services every time a new residential home, condo or apartment is built. By having an impact fee system in place it will help to keep the tax rate lower. If each new development pays for its fair share of what it causes to be built, less will have to be paid for through general obligation bonds.
What is the justification for considering and/or implementing impact fees? Over time, impact fees will help to reduce taxes by reducing capital improvement costs. If new development pays for that newly needed infrastructure, new bonds will not have to be granted to pay for that development. This then leads to less future tax increases or even lower taxes and allows. future residents to pay for their fair share of the infrastructure that they will cause the need for when they are moving to a municipality.
This then creates a problem, because all the infrastructure of facilities and open space for the City is paid for through bonds. The City has always bonded to pay for new facilities and land, and will probably always do this. One potential problem with the enactment of impact fees is that Warwick is very close to its build out. The last city build out projection in 1998 stated that the city was at approximately 96% build-out, and at the projected growth rates, not enough money will be available from the impact fees to be spent within the eight year time period allowed by the state law.
Some believe that the City of Warwick does not need impact fees because Warwick generally pays for all infrastructure improvements through bonds; in tum, taxpayers pay for the cost of all facilities through their taxes. Due to the fact that Warwick is almost at build-out, there will be such a small need for additional facilities, it will be difficult to raise enough money to build anything in the 8 year allowed time period from impact fees with the amount of new development expected.
This report states that all City standards would be held as they currently are, but in actuality, some of those standards are not up to what they should be. Monetarily, it is wise for the City to accept the current standards as they currently are for the standard that all impact fees would be based upon. This will allow the City to charge new developments the cost of keeping that same standard with little or no cost to the taxpayers.

Future Growth Potential in Warwick
As of 2002, there were approximately 1636 existing buildable house lots and 350 existing condos that could still be built in the city. Assuming 127 new single family homes are built per year it will take approximately 12.8 years for the city to reach build out. As listed in table 2, if it can be assumed that the city will receive $238,329.47 per year in impact fees, the city will receive $3,050,617.22 by the time the city reaches build out. This will be broken down into the following categories: Fees shall only be for newly created lots. Existing buildable lots will not be subject to the impact fees and will be "grandfathered" from the impact fees. This was based upon a political decision to not charge impact fees on existing single buildable lots. The rationale behind this decision was that these individual unbuilt house lots have been paying taxes for a number of years, and through those collected taxes have paid their fair share of any infrastructure burden that the construction of a new house will have on the City.
In addition, a political decision will have to be made on whether or not low and moderate income developments should be exempt from paying the impact fee. At this time, Warwick does not have the state required ten percent of low income housing, but Warwick does have a large number of affordable rental housing, which allows it to be exempt from the Comprehensive Permit process under the Low to Moderate Income Housing Act.

Summary
Impact fees fall within the general system of land development regulation. The objective of impact fees is not to raise money. Rather, the objective is to ensure adequate capital facilities. Where capital facilities are not adequate, permitting development is contrary to the responsibility of a local government to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. Implementation of an impact fee program will allow for the collection of fees to offset the cost to the City of providing the necessary capital facilities .
Impact fees may be used to pay for new facilities or the costs of existing facilities. In both cases, a direct relationship must be shown between the collection of an impact fee and a benefit to the payer.
The capital improvement program is the basis for any impact fee. This approach to impact fee calculation is based on the premise that new development should not be permitted to impose a fiscal burden upon the community.

Chapter Three
The Role of Warwick

First Steps
In order for the City to collect money from new development, it first has to determine if the City has an excess capacity, meets the current needs, or is deficient in the areas that it would like to institute development impact fees. If there is no excess capacity, the development impact fees can pay for expansions that those developments would necessitate. New developments will not pay for a need that had already existed.
The Comprehensive Plan should identify planned growth of the community and the need for capital facilities to support that growth. Some standards are outlined in Warwick's Comprehensive Plan concerning the need of certain services per individual. Yet, before these fees could be put into place, it will have to be shown that those standards are set at the current needs, or the City will need to bring them up to date within a reasonable period of time. It is recommended that the City change all of its standards to its current levels.
Concerning each potential fee, the fee for elementary schools would probably be confined to housing development. The other potential fees for fire, police, recreation, and open space could be applied to all development including commercial, residential, and industrial. At this time impact fees are only being assessed for residential development.
A needs assessment would be performed for the type of public facility or public facilities for which impact fees are to be levied. The needs assessment shall identify the level of service standards, projected public facilities, capital improvement needs, and to distinguish existing needs and deficiencies from future needs.
All fees paid in lieu of land dedication made to the City at the time of subdivision approval shall be credited against the impact fees due on a pro rata basis. Land dedication made to the City at the time of subdivision approval for capital improvements such as school, open space, or parks/recreation facilities shall be credited against impact fees according to current land values as assessed for dedication in the Warwick Land Development and Subdivision Regulations.
In addition, a fee waiver may be granted for the construction of low-income housing. This will assist the City in reaching the desired state goal of 10% of all residential units constituting low-income housing.
To begin the process of assessing whether a municipality needs impact fees, and the process that they will need to follow, the following outline can be used as a guide:

Chapter Four
Recreation Impact Fee Impact fees are frequently used to pay for new facilities in the parks and recreation sector, whether they serve local neighborhoods or larger communities and regions. Demand for new parks and recreation areas are created by an influx of new people moving into the community. Thus, if a municipality is to maintain its current standard for parks and recreational facility use, impact fees provide one mechanism for the funding of these facilities .
In order to accomplish this, it is important to have established a standard for parks and recreational facilities in the community. This can be done in one of two generally accepted manners. First, the municipality can base its standard on those of the National Recreation and Park Association (NRP A). The NRP A has established standard guidelines for several different types of facilities that either service regional areas or individual neighborhoods. These standards include guidelines for the desirable size of the facility, as well as the number of acres of parkland serving each one thousand people in the service area. Second, a level of service type standard can be calculated for the City itself by calculating the existing acreage for each type of facility and dividing the units of 1,000 people to establish an existing standard for available parks and recreation land. Regardless of whether the standard is based upon the NRP A guidelines or an existing level of service within the City, the goal is to maintain such a standard even as population and potential facility users increase in the City.
A City standard rather than the NRP A standard has been used for this report. For the purposes of establishing a City standard, we have grouped all city recreational land into one category. The City of Warwick standard for recreational land is 0.016839255 acres per household. This can also be expressed as 6.6822 acres ofrecreational land per 1000 persons. Any system of recreation impact fees established should maintain the City Standard for recreational land as the City continues to develop.

Recreation Impact Fee Methodology & Calculation
Warwick will need to require 40.9834 additional acres ofrecreation land to accommodate the estimated full potential build-out of an additional 2202 residential units and 3 78 condominiums. The 1990 census shows the population density in Warwick to be 2.52 persons per household. Using 2.52 persons per household on average, the construction of 2580 new residential units could result in a population increase of 6501.6 persons. The existing City standard is 0.015885069 acres of recreation land per household.
According to the 2000 US Census, Warwick's population has increased by 381. This corresponds to a need of an additional 2.30 acres of recreation land per year to support this annual population increase and maintain the City standard for open space and recreational facilities.
The recreation impact fee has been developed by using the average cost from recent city open space land acquisitions as determined in Table 5, the average population per household as determined by the 1990 census, and the City standard for recreation land to calculate the per residential housing fee. The recreational land costs do not include any necessary infrastructure to develop the land into a park. These costs were not factored into the development fee.
Based upon the recent Warwick land acquisitions from 1993-1999 the average cost of open space and recreational land per acre was $15,073.9882 (see Table 5

Chapter Six
Police Department Impact Fee Impact fees are often used to help raise revenue for new capital facilities for law enforcement due to the growing population of a municipality. As the population increases, the demand for more law enforcement officials increases, as does the capital facilities that those officers occupy. Impact fees are used to raise the necessary revenue proportionate to the need created by that new development. Thus if a municipality is to maintain its current law enforcement standards, impact fees provide one mechanism for the funding of these capital facilities needed due to the influx of new residents. In order to do this, standards have to be established for law enforcement capital facilities in the community. The current levels will be used as the standard that the impact fees will be based upon.
The current Police Headquarters is at capacity as far as spatial factors are concerned. The building has been upgraded in the past, but there is currently no more room to expand. It is in the opinion of the department that an extension or additional wing should be put on the existing facility to accommodate future development.
The facility built in 1977 is a two-story masonry building with 26,865 square feet of space. The cost of this facility was $2,500,000 in 1975 dollars, adjusting for inflation, this comes to $8, 210,293 .22 in 1999 dollars (see Appendix D). This equals a current cost of $305.61 per square foot. The building appears to meet most of the requirements of the Department at present staffing levels. To accommodate for the additional officers and infrastructure that will be needed for future City growth, an addition will need to be put onto the building.
Services that will be rendered for the impact fees are the construction costs of new infrastructure to be built. Impact fees can only pay for infrastructure improvements. There will be no services paid for by the impact fee, only infrastructure, which does not include police cars.

Police Department Impact Fee Methodology & Calculation
To accommodate the estimated full potential build-out of an additional 2202 residential units and 3 78 condominiums, based on the City's build-out analysis, an additional 1919.52 square feet of police department facility will be needed. This was based on the City standard of 0.7889 square feet per household. Due to there not being any police bonds, the police impact fee will remain the same at $241.12 per household.

Chapter Seven
Fire Department Impact Fee Impact fees are often used to help raise revenue for new capital facilities for fire departments due to the growing population of a municipality. As the population increases, the demand for more fire and rescue officials increases, as does the capital facilities that those individuals occupy. Impact fees are used to raise the necessary revenue proportionate to the need created by that new development. Thus if a municipality is to maintain its current fire department standards, impact fees provide one mechanism for the funding of these capital facilities needed due to the influx of new residents. In order to do this, standards have to be established for fire department capital facilities in the community. The current levels will be used as the standard that the impact fees will be based upon.
The fire department is broken into 10 fire districts. Nine of these districts are located in Warwick proper, and the 1 oth district is located in the Potowomut area. Warwick and East Greenwich service this district. These districts are based upon the first response of an engme.

Fire Department Impact Fee Methodology & Calculation
To accommodate the estimated full potential build-out of an additional 2202 residential units and 378 condominiums an additional 3323.04 square feet of fire department facility will be needed. In addition, 2 fire vehicles will be needed because the current standard for fire vehicles is approximately 1 vehicle per 1000 households.
The 1990 census shows the population density in Warwick to be 2.52 persons per household. Using 2.52 persons per household on average, the construction 0(2580 new residential units could result in a population increase of 6501.6 persons. This was based on the Citv standard o(l.365 square feet per household. The City has 46,500 square feet of fire stations. The airport fire station (most recently built station) was built at a cost of 1.2 million dollars. This building was 6000 sq. feet. That comes out to $200 per sq. foot. Therefore, the total cost of the fire building infrastructure is $9,300,000. Then for vehicles, the total dollar amount was divided by the estimated number of houses ($8,161,000 divided bv 36,096.16). This came out to $226.09 per household.   The current elementary school capacity is 6,647 and the current enrollment is 6,624 (See Table 6), therefore the school facilities are slightly under capacity. (High school and junior high school impact f ees were researched but were deemed inappropriate considering the excess capacity existing in the Warwick high school system at this time) . The planning department examined the issue of student enrollment by reviewing building permit activity for new single family residential structures. In the period from January 1, 1990 to January 1, 2000, the City issued 1323 building permits for new residential housing units. Of these permits 1275 were for single family units and 48 were for multifamily units (of these 48 permits, there were 173 units built). This equates to a ten-year average of 127.5 new single family and 17.3 new multi-family residences per year. Based on an assumed 2.52 persons per household, these permits equate to a population increase of 364.89 persons per year.
Using the ten year average of 127.5 single family building permits per year and the 1990 census data which showed that there were approximately .37 school age children per household, the planning department determined that 58.82 additional elementary school children will be enrolled in the Warwick schools by the year 2005 as a result of new single family residential construction. Impact fees can be used to offset the capital cost to the City of the increase in student enrollment.

School Facilities Impact Fee Methodology & Calculation
To accommodate the estimated full potential build-out of an additional 2202 residential units and 378 condominiums an additional 116,012.53 square feet of schools will be needed. This could consist of either many additions onto the existing elementary schools or the construction of 2 to 3 new schools.
The calculation of impact fees is based on the amount of money it would cost to build an additional square foot of school building per the most recent bid for school construction. This was based on an all-purpose room.
The current city population is approximately 85808. Using data from the 1990 ·census, it was determined that there are approximately .37 school age children per household. This was ascertained by dividing 12,717 by 85,808. This came out to school age children compromising 14.8% of the total population. Current enrollment at the public schools is 6,624. Capacity of all the elementary schools is 6,647 students; therefore, the school department is under capacity. Total square footage of all the elementary schools is 807,870. The area of square footage per student is 807,870 divided by 6,647 (square footage/capacity) equals 121.53 square feet per student. There is approximately 44.96 square feet of elementary school per household. Cost can be based upon latest bid to the school department per square foot of new school. The average latest bid was $127.66 per square foot of additions onto existing schools. These costs do not include minor cost changes, which would occur during construction and would make the prices even higher. It should be noted that these costs will go up over time, as construction costs and material costs increase, therefore creating the need to update these fees periodically. When 44.96 is multiplied by $127.66 it comes out to $3,028.79 per household.

Two years later
The Development Impact Fee Plan for the City of Warwick is still in the process of reviewed by the City Council, but to date has not been implemented through the enactment of an ordinance. To date, the Warwick City Council is still in the process of reviewing ordinances which would put the place, or components of it into affect.
The main motivation behind the initial push to have an impact fee study completed for the City was all based on a political platform of slowing growth and reducing the burden on the City's schools and other municipal services. One City Council member ran on the premise of slowing down growth in the few still under developed sections of the City, and preserving open space. Once he was elected into office, the development of this Plan was mostly fueled by his questions of the Planning Department. In addition, during this same period, a small group of very vocal residents from the one major undeveloped section of the City pressured the City to purchase the majority of the existing unprotected open land in the City. The later purchase of these properties by the City would also be a very major factor of why this Plan never made it out of committee. It was the fear of the development of this land that spurred the desire to research development impact fees for the City.
In retrospect, there was little need for development impact fees for the City of Warwick. The City of Warwick is almost completely built out and impact fees are more commonly used in rural or developing municipalities that have little infrastructure or have large amounts of undeveloped land that if developed could greatly reduce the quality of the existing infrastructure and create a need for additional infrastructure over a relatively short period of time. The majority of the concern of residents in Warwick had to do with existing deficiencies in the infrastructure for the City, a cause that impact fees would not have made any difference in solving. There was little need for additional school space, fire stations, library, or police department improvements that could not be covered through the typically used bonding process for the City. Bonds would be more equitable in that all capital improvements are paid for through bonds, which everyone will assist in paying through their municipal real estate taxes.
Impact fees can be a very useful planning tool. They can work very well in rural and growing communities to help offset the costs of new development on the existing housing stock so that homeowners are not overburdened with tax increases. In my current employment for the Town of Richmond, Rhode Island, development impact fees have been in place since 1995 as part of an overall growth management program. The impact fees have been very successful at what they were designed to do, and other growing municipalities have been implementing or trying to implement impact fees due to their success.  Table 17 arw1c o_p_u ation W kP I . P ro1ection   Appendix D Bond discounted impact fees

Appendix E Protected Open Space
The following is an inventory of open space parcels that have been acquired by the City