Fire department chiefs from a number of districts that cover north Clark County are pushing for another funding mechanism so they can build more stations.
During a work session May 10, Clark County Council heard from representatives of several fire departments, all of whom united under one thing — fire impact fees.
Currently, the county does not levy impact fees on new construction like many local municipalities do. This leaves dozens of square kilometers with no onus to support the infrastructure needed if and when the property owners either sell to a developer or build themselves.
For fire protection districts, the state’s funding mechanism is limited to an operations levy of up to $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed value. A district can only increase the levy by 1% every year, Clark County Fire District 3 Chief Scott Sorensen said.
“It simply does not allow for us to consider capital (expenses) within that funding mechanism, unless we don’t spend on staffing and services related to the needs of the district,” Sorensen said.
Fire District 3 was “pretty well maximized” on what’s affordable to those in the district, as its tax base is largely from residential property. The district covers much of east-central Clark County, including Battle Ground.
An option for capital purchases was through making an impact fee. It would be leveled on new construction, with solid rates for residential developments and a per-square-foot rate for commercial and industrial uses.
Sorensen said his board of directors directed him to work on getting impact fees going because of what community feedback they have seen regarding growth.
“These people, many of them have been there for a long time. They’ve already paid their dues. They built the capital. We built the fire stations, they purchased the equipment,” Sorensen said.
“And it’s hard to keep up … because the call for service is increasing,” Sorensen said.
According to statistics provided by the fire districts, call volumes increased the most in CCFR’s jurisdiction in the last year, jumping 22% from 2020 to 2021. Since 2016, Clark County Fire District 6’s call volume hiked by more than half, as did CCFR. Clark County Fire District 3’s volume jumped by a quarter in that same time period.
Response times also increase with growth, by some 5% from 2020 to 2021 in Fire District 3 and Fire District 6.
CCFR handles about 60,000 population, while Clark County Fire District 3 represents about 45,000. It’s the districts closest to Vancouver with the most population — Clark County Fire District 6, which represents territory south of the county fairgrounds, has about 75,000 population. Clark County Fire District 5 — which is administered by Vancouver Fire — has about 94,000 to the north and northeast of Vancouver city limits, Vancouver Fire Department Chief Brennan Blue said.
Blue mentioned the different districts develop their own capital facilities plans. He said the capital facilities plans for the different districts are the roadmap that has to be submitted to the county for any headway to be made regarding impact fees.
“It is a very complex formula, with lots of numbers,” Blue said.
The Vancouver chief noted enacting impact fees would bring parity to the growing unincorporated region of the county.
“Those who are moving into the community have to have some stake in the game and pay their share at the beginning to help fund what needs to be funded based on the impacts that are created,” Blue said.
County councilors went into discussion but ultimately decided to not do anything.
The council wasn’t expected to make any decision, as the discussion was only a part of a work session, not a public hearing.
The possibility of bringing up the idea to levy fire impact fees was not dead, however.
Councilor Michelle Belkot said she would feel comfortable bringing the implementation to the voters rather than implementing it herself.
“There’s a lot of development that people don’t want in this area. They don’t want increased taxes on top of record-setting inflation,” Belkot said.
Councilor Gary Medvigy said the county was already charging “huge” impact fees.
“This is Washington state. This is how it’s done,” he said.
Impact fees on new construction have a variety of directions where they can be spent, but only if they are approved for something specific, such as traffic, schools or parks.
Councilor, and council chair pro-tem for the meeting, Medvigy, said he was at one point against the appointment of impact fees.
“I wish that schools were funded differently; I wish that emergency services were funded differently,” Medvigy said.
When a decision on fire impact fees comes to a vote, Medvigy may be singing a different tune than he did some four years ago.
“Where I did not previously support these impact fees, I do strongly support them now,” Medvigy said.
