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New Tampa

Parkland crusade, impact-fee push keep hitting wall

Council member Shawn Harrison wants more parks in New Tampa. But on paper, there's no shortage, and other council members resist paying for new parks.

By DEMORRIS LEE
Published May 6, 2005

NEW TAMPA - Imposing an impact fee on new development to create parks is not a new idea. City Council member Shawn Harrison suggested it a year or so ago as a way to help New Tampa pay for much-needed recreation space.

Harrison knows that getting an impact fee for parks is a tough sell to his fellow council members, especially since a recent study indicated that the city has enough parks. But he continues to bring up the option as a way to get the city to address one of his district's most urgent needs.

"I don't agree with that study, and we have to be a little more open to the idea (of impact fees)," said Harrison, who represents New Tampa. "Instead of hiding behind a study, because everyone in New Tampa knows we don't have enough parks, we need to find ways to build parks. "You have to have money to do that and if not from an impact fee, then from taxes. In my district, there is a critical shortage."

The residents of New Tampa have been seeking a solution to the lack of recreation fields since the area along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard began to swell with homes and people. Last month, Hillsborough County commissioners accepted a report from a group of New Tampa residents that looked at park needs in the area. The county's staff has 120 days to find a site for a 40-acre park to provide some relief.

Harrison thinks the city should impose an impact fee on new development, the same way the county does. From October 1999 to April 2005, the county collected about $2.5-million in impact fees from new homes built in the county's northeastern zone, which includes the parts of New Tampa that aren't in the Tampa city limits. Of that, the county has spent $1.8-million on parks in that zone.

City Council member Mary Alvarez, the chairwoman of the city's Parks and Recreation committee, said she thought the idea of a city impact fee was "a dead issue." A representative of West Tampa, Alvarez said she'd never agree to an impact fee.

"The city is doing a good enough job in trying to locate areas for parks," Alvarez said. "(Harrison) has a problem in New Tampa, but he is going to get more parks as more development comes, which is more of a luxury than we have in other parts of the city."

Alvarez said Harrison can get real estate developers to dedicate land to the city for public parks, while other parts of the city have a lack of available land.

"I don't see the need," Alvarez said of an impact fee. "And as long as I'm on the council, I will always oppose it."

Early last year, Harrison helped persuade the city to conduct a study of its park needs. In June 2004, a consultant concluded that the city had adequate parks.

"The study found that an impact fee would not be a viable funding solution for the city," said Tom Johnston, an urban planner for Tampa's Parks and Recreation Department.

Johnston said the city's Comprehensive Plan dictates levels of services that the city will provide, and the study found that the city is meeting those needs.

The service standards for city parks call for 4.3 acres of overall parkland per 1,000 residents. That is further broken down into neighborhood parks, 2 acres per 1,000 residents; and community parks, 2.3 acres per 1,000 residents. Neighborhood parks are 40 acres or smaller, while community or major parks have 41 to 150 acres.

"Where New Tampa gets trapped is New Tampa Community Park is an active recreation park but the nature park is passive," Johnston said. "The Catch-22: New Tampa has more total parkland per resident than the rest of the city. But what they need is the active recreation facilities, the soccer fields, the baseball fields."

Because the city's study found that there were enough city parks, the city could only use an impact fee to buy land and not for building ball fields, Johnston said. The city is required to follow its own Comprehensive Plan.

" ... Recreational facilities are not outlined in the service level of the Comprehensive Plan," Johnston said.

One problem with impact fees, said Johnston, is that much of New Tampa was developed under Developments of Regional Impact plans that dictate parkland and land planning.

"Anybody who has filed a DRI would be exempt from the impact fee, which easily could be 90 percent of New Tampa," Johnston said.

Developers, of course, are firmly against impact fees.

Joseph Narkiewicz, executive vice president of the Builders Association of Greater Tampa, said that because the city's study showed there are enough parks, there should be no further discussion about impact fees.

"There may be some fine-tuning on a need basis, but that's all," Narkiewicz said. "There is no need for impact fees to buy new parkland."

In New Tampa, in addition to the New Tampa Community Park and the nature park, the city has some fields at Benito Middle School. A recreational facility with an emphasis on gymnastics is currently being designed for the New Tampa Community Park site. The project should be put out for bid late this year or early 2006, with construction to begin the same year.

Parks officials are updating a master plan that will inventory all the city's parks and will gather information from city neighborhoods to get a sense of what the current parks and recreation needs are.

The city also has begun to plan for 5 acres just south of Interstate 75 that was donated by developer Warren Kinsler. There are preliminary plans to put a parking lot, a dog park and a multi-use field on the site, Johnston said.

"We haven't gotten an exact legal description of the property so we don't know how much wetlands or uplands we have on the property," Johnston said. "It will be used for active recreation, but we are looking at what we can put on the property."

Patty Maney, a Tampa Palms homeowner who is on the subdivision's taxing district board, is the chairwoman of a focus group that looked at what should be done with those 5 acres. She said the group determined there should be multi-use fields and a place for children to play.

Maney is opposed to an impact fee on development.

She also doesn't think a gymnastics facility is in line with what the community wants in New Tampa. She said no one to her knowledge has spoken of such a need, and she criticized her City Council representative, Harrison, for supporting the gymnastics center.

"I don't know who Mr. Harrison is listening to when it comes to what we need in terms of parks, but he is not listening to the community."

Harrison has said the planned New Tampa gymnastics center would be modeled after the popular, city-owned Tampa Gym and Dance center in Seminole Heights.

Harrison said he simply wants the city to address the lack of parks in New Tampa.

"Until the city administration thinks we should readdress what the study told us and until the parks department decides we need to redefine our definition of service levels, I'm beating my head against the wall," he said.

Staff writer Demorris Lee can be reached at 813 269-5312 or dalee@sptimes.com

[Last modified May 5, 2005, 01:31:12]