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IMPACTS OF EXPECTED GROWTH AND CHANGE <br />The RRPRD is not planning on acquiring additional parklands or expanding the park <br />district into the Santa Clara area. The District is constrained by the diminishing tax <br />base, and its revenues have been negatively impacted. The shrinking district has <br />made bonded debt more onerous for district property owners. <br />RRPRD property owners typically pay higher taxes and lower fees for recreation <br />activities than City of Eugene property owners. Under total annexation, recreation <br />fees would probably increase for users from the River Road area. In River Road, <br />overall taxes would also increase, but the tax contribution to recreation would <br />decrease under annexation. <br />If the City of Eugene were to annex all of River Road or Santa Clara and the City <br />acquired RRPRD's assets, the City's total population and total parks acreage would <br />increase, and its costs and revenues would increase. Because the overall parks acreage <br />would not increase much, but the population would grow by over 20,000 residents, <br />the overall ratio of parks acres per 1,000 residents would decline with complete <br />annexation. In total, there are currently 122 acres of parkland in the River Road and <br />Santa Clara areas, or about 4 acres per 1,000 people living in the area. <br />While current park acreage is low and there are no community parks or metropolitan <br />parks in the River Road /Santa Clara area, the City of Eugene is in the process of <br />acquiring more parks in the area. For example, the City plans to acquire and develop <br />approximately 40 acres in the Santa Clara area for a community park.-- <br />CITY OF EUGENE EXPECTED COSTS <br />The City would acquire the assets of the RRPRD. Its costs would rise to pay for <br />staffing programs and maintaining the facilities. The RRPRD has requested that the <br />City enter into a new intergovernmental agreement stipulating that in the event of <br />total annexation of the district, the City would retain RRPRD staff and <br />programming. No decision has been made about this matter. <br />If we assume that the City would operate Emerald Park in the same way that <br />RRPRD operates, we can project some costs to the City under total annexation. If <br />the City retained RRPRD staff and programming, some of the costs would be spread <br />across City divisions. RRPRD has a full administrative and management staff that <br />would be duplicative if the City annexed the entire district. The RRPRD would not <br />be a stand alone agency and Emerald Park would no longer need to issue its own <br />payroll or perform other tasks that are centralized within the City of Eugene. For <br />example, Emerald Park would be part of the Eugene parks system and would not <br />need a board of directors. If the City retained the current RRPRD staff, personnel <br />costs of approximately $1.65 million annually would be added to the current $12.9 <br />million in annual costs for parks, recreation and cultural services. <br />11 City of Eugene Public Works Departrnent, Exgeae Maw 20 -03 Parkf & Open Spare Pig di- <br />RR/SC Fiscal Analysis: Parks ECONorthwest . October 2004 Page 7 -17 <br />