The Town of Chesterton is enacting a new recreation impact fee schedule.

The Town of Chesterton stated the following on their Facebook page:

Over the next 10 years, the Town of Chesterton’s population could grow by 1,880 people: From an estimated 14,240 in 2023 to 16,120 in 2033, assuming an average annual growth rate of 1.25 percent and a total of 783 new single-family households.
Those are the calculations run by Charles Lehman of Lehman & Lehman, the consultancy retained by the Park Board to prepare a study on the next five-year recreation impact fee to be charged to builders.

Revenues from the recreation impact fee—currently set at $994 and payable by builders of all new residential units upon issuance of a building permit—are used expressly for “the purpose of planning and financing park and recreational infrastructure to serve new developments.”

Any established impact fee, however, expires after five years—the current one will expire on March 23, 2025—and a new five-year fee must be in place before the old one sunsets.
At its meeting Monday night, Sept. 23, the Town Council voted 3-0 to enact on first reading an ordinance establishing an impact fee of $1,486, to take effect on March 23, 2025, and then to increase by 3 percent every year thereafter through 2029, when it will be $1,723.

For the record, the average first-year impact fee of 25 other Indiana communities was $1,924—ranging from a high of $5,370 (Carmel) to a low of $947 (Winfield)—or 16 percent higher than the Town of Chesterton’s 2025 fee.
For the record, the average fifth-year impact fee of those 25 communities will be $2,208, or 28 percent higher than the Town of Chesterton’s 2029 fee.

A portion of the revenues from the new recreation impact fee could be used for a variety of projects:
*Dog park.
*Skate park.
*Multi-use trails.
*Multi-use fields.
*Park shelters.
*Park restrooms.

Earlier this year, the Town Council created a Park Impact Fee Advisory Committee and appointed the following to serve on it:
*Paul Shinn, representing the building industry.
*Paul Boyter, representing the realty industry.
*Town Engineer Mark O’Dell.
*Park Superintendent Tyler McLead.
*Town Council Member Dane Lafata, D-3rd, the Town Council’s liaison to the Park Department.

The Park Board endorsed the proposed new recreation impact fee schedule at its Sept. 3 meeting. The Advisory Plan Commission also endorsed the fee at its Sept. 19 meeting, after holding a public hearing on it at which no one spoke in favor of it or in opposition to it.

Because two Town Council members were unable to attend the Sept. 23 meeting (Erin Collins, D-2nd, and Jennifer Fisher, R-5th, were absent), and because Indiana Code requires a super-majority to enact a recreation impact fee (at least four of five members of an executive body), the Town Council will hold a special meeting to take final action on the new fee, at 11 a.m. Monday, Sept. 30, at the fire station, 702 Broadway.