Agenda - 05-26-1992 - Laserfiche WebLink

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May 26, 1992 Orange County Commissioners Orange County Courthouse 106 East Margaret Lane Hillsborough, NC RE: Proposed Housing Impact Fees for School Funding Dear Commissioners: /w/1- S /a?d /9 2 RADWAY & WEAVER Planning and Development Consulting 147 Lake Ellen Drive Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 942 -2021 I am opposed to the use of Impact Fees for the financing of part or all of the costs of capital facili- ties for either the Orange County or the Chapel Hill - Carrboro school districts. During the last 15 years I have been directly involved in many studies of the impact of new resi- dential development on public facilities - especially schools. Without exception, in communities similar to Orange County and Chapel Hill, my studies have shown that the most significant factor affecting increased school enrollments is demographic change in the existing housing, not the number of children in new housing. I have examined the data provided by the county planning department and collected further infor- mation from both school districts, the 1990 and 1980 census, the municipalities, and several pri- vate sources of building data. I have found no direct relationship and only a marginal indirect rela- tionship between housing development and increased enrollments. School specific enrollments seem to indicate larger increases in enrollment in existing neighborhoods with limited new hous- ing. This is consistent with my findings in about a dozen studies over the last 5 years. A look at the increases by cohort class shows unusual growth between specific grades rather than fairly evenly distributed increases. For Example: Grade I2 Grade 89-W IQ 90 -91 W-91 W 2L-22 K 1 29 63 5 6 66 35 6 7 41 54 8 9 50 40 Select Enrollment Change 186 192 Total Change in Enrollment 250 297 Attached to this letter are several tables and charts I prepared to help myself in understanding the information presented with the proposal for impact fees and the bond issue for new schools. Since there is no existing empirical data on the relationship between housing type and school en- rollment and no plans by any institution to develop such data I can not imagine that the proposal before you can be justified as an exercise of public policy based on a rational nexus connecting the cause of the problem to the effect of the problem to the proposed solution. With regard to the issue of school district needs, my attempt to determine or verify the suggested relationship of housing development to school enrollment growth has led me to conclude that the individual school districts have significantly overestimated the facilities needed during the remain- der of this decade.