TEMECULA -- It might sound counterintuitive, but the city is looking to boost revenue by freezing the fees it charges developers and dropping the price for use of the Patricia Birdsall Sports Park's soccer fields.

City Manager Shawn Nelson said the two changes, which were approved recently by the City Council, work together because the underlying rationale for the actions is the same: freezing the fees -- which were set to rise by 5 percent -- should help encourage development, and lowering the cost to book the park's field is expected to help bring in more tournaments.

When there is more development and more tournaments at the park, the city eventually benefits by increases in transit occupancy taxes, money paid by tourists staying at the city's hotels, and trickle down spending by people building the new developments and revenue produced by the buildings, collected via sales taxes and property taxes.

Addressing the sports park fees, Nelson said visitors to the city who come into town for tournaments are an important economic engine.

"They stay at our hotels, go shopping, buy gas and go to movies," he said. "It's better for our local economy."

Talking about the development impact fees, Nelson said the city is trying to strike a balance. The economic rationale for charging impact fees is to recoup money from developers that the city is forced to spend on public works projects necessitated by new development, such as widening streets.

In recent months, Nelson said, the cost of paying for those types of infrastructure projects has been dropping, making it unnecessary to raise those fees.

"We're doing it in a way that's helping to stimulate economic development without causing long-term adverse impacts to our community. I think we're striking a good balance," he said.

In reports for the council, city staff members provided the details of the proposed changes.

Herman Parker, director of community services, said in his report that his staff looked at similar sports parks in Southern California before proposing the new fees, which will be charged on a "per field/per day" basis as opposed to charging each individual team that uses a field.

For example, under the old system, a team that was playing in a tournament at the sports park would have been charged a set price for use of the field. Under the new system, the organizers of the tournament will be paying to reserve space at the field.

Parker said this should translate into lower costs for tournament directors, making the park a more attractive place to stage a tournament.

"This minor modification should increase soccer tournament reservations, attract more participation at our park site and as a result generate additional overnight visitors increasing our (transit occupancy tax) revenue," Parker stated in the report.

Estimating the bottom line increase, Parker said the revenue collected just from the new soccer tournaments will total about $20,000.

Genie Roberts, the city's director of finance, penned the report on the development impact fees, noting that the council adopted a resolution in 2003 that provided for automatic adjustment in the fees tied to a regional building cost index.

Following the index's guidelines, the fees would have been boosted by 5 percent this year.

Roberts said in the report that the financial impact of not increasing the fees is negligible because the city's budget for the fiscal year, which started Wednesday, did not anticipate any growth in estimated revenue from the fees, which has been pegged at $4.3 million.

Call staff writer Aaron Claverie at 951-676-4315, ext. 2624.