The Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) is one element of Clallam County’s Comprehensive Plan that is required by the Growth Management Act. This Comprehensive Plan coordinates land use elements with the capital facilities and transportation elements. This internal consistency and coordination ensures that the forecast of future needs is accurate, and that the land use element is reassessed if funding falls short of meeting existing and future capital facilities needs. Please refer to the transportation element for transportation system improvements. The full Capital Facilities Plan is hereby incorporated by reference to this Comprehensive Plan as Appendix A.

The CFP is a twenty (20) year plan with a six (6) year financial element for construction and maintenance of the County’s capital facilities. The County capital facilities covered in this Plan include roads, sewer, general administration, courts, detention and corrections, law and justice, parks, recreation and open space, flood control devices, solid waste and equipment maintenance facilities. This plan does not include facilities owned and managed by other public entities, such as the public utility district, schools, fire districts, etc. At such time as these public entities complete inventories and set service levels, this chapter can be amended to include those facilities. They will then be expected to go through the committee process and the public hearing process to determine if they should be added to this Plan.

The Capital Facilities Plan includes four (4) major steps: (a) an inventory of existing capital facilities; (b) a forecast of the future needs; (c) proposed locations and capacities of capital facilities; and (d) a six (6) year financing plan.

The Growth Management Act requires that adequate public facilities and services necessary to support development be available at the time of development. This plan identifies flood protection as the only necessary County public facilities at the time of development. Those County public facilities identified in this Plan that are needed within six (6) years of development are: sewer (Clallam Bay/Sekiu), parks, recreation and open space, and solid waste.

Financing improvements to County public facilities can occur in one of two (2) basic manners: tax sources, such as property, sales or real estate excise taxes; or through private sources, such as mitigation requirements or development impact fees. This plan identifies use of tax sources, including an increase in the real estate excise tax and mitigation requirements to finance needed capital facility improvements. This plan does not identify development impact fees as a source of public facility and service funding.

New development often pays for the cost of extending new public facilities and services. For example, if a development is proposed on a County road that is not adequate to handle traffic, the County is able to require the developer to pay the costs of improving the County road. Water and sewer systems are similarly financed; if a developer proposes to extend water and sewer to a property, it is the responsibility of the developer to pay the costs for extension of those services.

Another way that development pays for the cost of extending new public facilities is through development fees. For example, the cities require anyone who hooks up to the sewer or water system to pay a hook-up fee. This fee is put into a special account for the eventual planning and upgrade of the system, such as the sewer treatment facility. This hook-up fee is in addition to requiring the developer extend the actual collection or distribution lines.

Chapter 82.46 RCW authorizes counties and cities to impose an additional excise tax on the sale of real estate to finance public facility construction. This additional tax is authorized in two (2) increments of one-quarter of one percent of the sale price. Clallam County adopted the first one-quarter of one percent in 1990 and has set aside funds for capital improvements. Another new taxing source which is considered for purchase of parks and open space lands is the Conservation Futures Tax, Chapter 84.34 RCW This source is taxed on all parcels of property at a rate up to $0.0625 per $1,000 assessed valuation.

This way of paying for public facility and service extension is based on three (3) principles: (a) setting level of service standards for public facilities and services; (b) ensuring that public facilities and services necessary to support development are adequate to serve the development at the time the development is available for occupancy (called “concurrency”); and (c) requiring development to pay fees for the new facilities rather than rely solely on property taxes or grants to fund development of these public facilities (development impact fees).

The State limits the use of development impact fees to only those system improvements that are reasonably related to the new development, and specifically only for public streets and roads, public parks, open space and recreation, schools and fire protection facilities in areas that are not part of a fire district. (Fire facilities are generally not eligible in most of Clallam County rural or urban lands because the areas are part of a fire district.) Development impact fees cannot be used to pay for getting existing facilities up to adopted standards, or for operation and maintenance of the facilities. Development impact fees also cannot be used as the sole source of funding new facility construction, but may be used to “balance” other funding sources, such as property taxes.

The level of service summary shows that the County may expend up to $6,700,000 over the next six (6) years to maintain the level of services which citizens now enjoy. Of these costs, revenue sources of $1,380,000 have not been identified, although $1,100,000 may be eliminated by being able to use the old Courthouse in the solution of office space. There is also about $2,000,000 in parks and recreation which will be spent over the next twenty (20) years, not necessarily by the year 2000. These facts bring the funded portion of the Plan in line with revenues.

There is a problem with this positive outlook. There are no costs as of yet to resolve the Jail prisoner separation problem. This is still in the analysis stage and could be a significant impact on the Capital Facility Plan. One possible solution for this problem lies in the reuse of the old Juvenile Facility which becomes available in late 1994. The alternatives could range in cost from $100,000 to over $1,500,000. This Plan is expected to be modified when this data is available.

The funding to make this Plan work includes the second one-quarter percent local real estate excise tax as allowed under Chapter 82.46 RCW. This revenue source would be in lieu of development impact fees. This presents a logical method for financing the needed capital facilities without the negative aspect of impact fees reducing development. The other significant revenue source is the use of conservation futures and bonds for the large expenditures in park land. Thus, the people will have a say in the approval of those large acquisitions which impact them the most and advance the park system the most. If funding sources are not realized, then either the LOS Standards will have to be adjusted in recognition of the ultimate abilities of the County resources, or limits on future development and land uses will have to be enacted.

Throughout the Capital Facilities Plan, noncapital alternatives are presented to reduce the financial impact of needed capital facilities. It is expected that these alternatives will lessen the imbalance in the financial resources of the plan. Also, not all of the park expenditures are necessary to accomplish the plan. Only those which present the best opportunity for park enhancement will be accomplished and thus some savings should be realized.