The Kirkland City Council approved a school impact fee hike on new development during its Dec. 9 meeting. The ordinance increases the fees for new single-family homes from $6,302 to $9,623 for new multi-family unit developments. The fee increased from $207 per unit to $745.

The new impact fees will go into effect at the beginning of the new year. Impact fees are based on the impact fee schedule and go in to effect on the date a complete building permit application is filed.

The new impact fees are intended to help the Lake Washington School District handle the increase in students, according to spokesperson Kathryn Reith.

“Often what happens when you have developments is you have more kids coming but not enough to justify building a new school,” she said. “There are a lot of different factors that go into how we handle new student enrollment. Sometimes those dollars are used for portable classrooms or for purchasing land. If we’re going to build a new school at some point we’re going to need land. The impact fees are not enough to be able to pay for much of the actual buildings themselves. It’s a small percentage of that.”

Paul Stewart, deputy director for the Planning and Community Development Department, said that the new fees don’t apply to units that are being replaced on a property.

In October, the school district’s board of directors unanimously voted to reallocate unspent funds from a 2006 bond measure to accommodate the district’s growth through the 2017-18 school year. Reith said district officials began discussing repurposing the funds during the spring after a $404 million bond measure, that would address the district’s overcrowding and enrollment growth, failed.