Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 officials are looking for data on how a proposed development in Park Ridge will affect the district’s bottom line and its enrollment numbers.
District 64 officials commissioned Evanston-based Teska Associates Inc. for an $8,000 study to analyze the financial impact of both a residential and a commercially oriented development on the site of the Mr. K Garden and Material Center at 1440 W. Higgins Road.
Members of the Park Ridge Planning and Zoning Commission are reviewing a concept plan for 31 townhouse units on the site. The development will need City Council approval to rezone the parcel from commercial to residential.
A memo from district administrators to the board made note of an array of development activities in the city, but the document placed special emphasis on the Mr. K site because city officials were actively considering a zoning change that would, if approved, alter the amount property tax revenue the district receives from the parcel and potentially increase the number of students enrolled in district schools.
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District 64 Superintendent Laurie Heinz said in an interview last week that she’s noticed in-fill development popping up across the city.
“They are largely town homes and condominiums, and we never quite know how many kids each unit will generate,” she said. “Coupled with that fact that some of our facilities are almost reaching capacity, we thought it was time to commission a study for data and planning purposes.”
The study will be presented both to school board and City Council members, Heinz said.
Park Ridge Mayor Marty Maloney said he’s pleased the district is moving forward with a fiscal impact study.
“Anecdotally, we hear schools are overcrowded, and I don’t disagree with that, but in order to have a serious discussion about future development in Park Ridge, we need some data,” Maloney said in an interview this week.
Luann Kolstad, chief school business official for District 64, said in an interview last week that the district receives less revenue from residential property than commercial property. Residential property in Cook County is assessed at 10 percent of market value, while commercial is assessed at 25 percent. Additionally, she said, if families with school-aged children move into the townhouse developments, the amount money the home would generate in tax dollars will not cover the cost to educate a new student in the district.
Heinz said the results of the study will help district officials and administrators make a decision to come out in support of or against the zoning change requested by the developer.
The fiscal impact study will also help administrators determine whether a district boundary study, an initiative that’s planned for sometime between now and 2020, should happen sooner rather than later, she said. The boundary study will look at whether changing school boundaries will help even out the student population and ease the burden on schools that are particularly crowded, Heinz said.
During a June 26 board of education meeting, district officials also mentioned the possibility of lobbying the City Council to assess an impact fee on developers. An impact fee is a fee imposed upon a developer by a municipal government to help pay for the cost of providing public services to the new development.
“We need to take pressure off taxpayers, and one of the ways to ease that pressure on the taxpayer is an impact fee,” board member Larry Ryles said during the June 26 meeting. “When I started asking questions a year ago, I was thoroughly surprised Park Ridge did not participate in an impact fee.”
While he supports Ryle’s fight for an impact fee, board member Tom Sotos said during the meeting that “it’s not going to solve our problems.”
“If we assess an impact fee on the 31 units considered for the Mr. K site, that impact fee won’t be enough to help us potentially work around our particular problem if all 31 units end up having children in them,” he said.
Kolstad agreed with that assessment during an interview last week. She said the district may recommend the board pursue asking the city to implement such a fee, but even with one in place, the amount of revenue realized from it would be relatively small in comparison to the cost of educating a new student.
Maloney said he doesn’t believe an impact fee would significantly ease the district’s cost burden. But, he added, “that being said, I’m open to having conversations about them and we haven’t had those conversations yet (at the City Council).”
Maloney said the district’s fiscal impact study won’t stop development from occurring, but it will aid in the conversation around adding new development and increasing density in the city.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.