Orange County NC Website
5/26/99 31 <br />A. Development Exactions for Recreation in Orange <br />County <br />Population growth over the past thirty years has forced a reassessment of <br />the traditional means of acquiring public park and recreation areas. <br />Increasing pressures on funds generated from the traditional property tax <br />levy and from bond referenda have challenged fundamental ideas on paying <br />for parks and recreation. Public officials have been encouraged to consider <br />alternatives to the negotiated purchase of park land and sole reliance on the <br />property tax base and bond funds. Alternatives to purchase and dedications <br />include payment -in -lieu and impact fee programs. <br />The Work Group has recognized that all local government jurisdictions in <br />Orange County have recreation requirements In their own Subdivision <br />Regulations or Land Use Ordinances which mandate that land be dedicated, <br />private recreation facilities provided, or a combination thereof. These <br />requirements fall under the statutory regulatory/police authority -of local <br />governments to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their communities. <br />These recreation requirements are legally acceptable under this authority, <br />similar to roads, utilities, and other public improvements required as <br />conditions for subdivision approval. The North Carolina Supreme Court <br />affirmed this authority in Messer v. Town of Chapel Hill, 297 S.E.2d 632 <br />(1982), in holding that the Town ordinance, within the statutory powers <br />given to a city, could exact recreation land or facilities and even require the <br />particular site within the subdivision to provide adequate recreation needs. <br />B. Definition of Payment -in -Lieu and Impact Fee <br />Programs <br />VNE 1_t -L L <br />A more recent tool for providing recreation facilities has been the <br />Inclusion of a payment -in -lieu program under this same general <br />statutory power. In this program, a subdivision developer pays a fee <br />related to the jurisdiction's cost of acquiring commensurate recreation <br />lands, of the type it could have required the developer to dedicate. <br />These fees then help provide recreation facilities within the immediate <br />area of the development. If the developer is provided the option to <br />meet the jurisdiction's requirements or make some commensurate <br />payment -in -lieu of recreation facilities, the jurisdiction is empowered <br />to accept the payment under its existing statutory powers. Payment - <br />in -lieu fees must be geographically designated within the ".immediate <br />area" of the development; spent within a reasonable amount of time, <br />and supplemented with other funds. <br />29 <br />