A. Funds collected from park impact fees shall be used solely for the purpose of acquiring and/or making capital improvements to citywide or local parks under the jurisdiction of Bellingham, and shall not be used for maintenance or operations.

B. Funds shall be used exclusively for acquisitions, expansions, or capital improvements within the citywide or local park impact fee service areas. Funds shall be expended in the order in which they were collected.

C. In the event that bonds or similar debt instruments are issued for advanced provision of capital facilities for which park impact fees may be expended, impact fees may be used to pay debt service on such bonds or similar debt instruments to the extent that the facilities provided are of the type described in subsections (A) and (B) of this section.

D. Impact fees for system improvements shall be expended by the city only in conformance with the capital facilities plan (CFP).

E. Impact fees shall be expended or encumbered by the city for a permissible use within 10 years of receipt by the city, unless there exists an extraordinary or compelling reason for fees to be held longer than 10 years. The city council shall identify the city’s extraordinary and compelling reasons for the fees to be held longer than 10 years in the council’s own written findings.

F. At least once each fiscal period, the parks director shall present to the council a proposed capital facilities plan (CFP) for parks, assigning funds, including any accrued interest from the park impact fee special revenue fund to specific park improvement projects and related expenses. Moneys, including any accrued interest not assigned in any fiscal period, shall be retained in the park impact fee special revenue fund until the next fiscal period, except as provided by the refund provisions of this chapter.

G. Funds may be used to provide refunds as described in BMC 19.04.120.

H. Bellingham shall be entitled to retain not more than two percent of the funds collected as compensation for the expense of collecting the fee and administering this chapter. [Ord. 2011-07-037; Ord. 2006-02-012].