Unveiled in the coming month
First Look at New Residential Developer Fee Later This Month
The new development fees approved by the Council last July should be unveiled in the coming month, possibly as early as the Oct. 14 meeting, Fuentes told the Council last week.
"We are still working on a model of what the fees will be - we're at a point where we're pretty comfortable with the number. We've been having a number of meetings with developer community. Everything is going well to implement if the council approves what we're recommending."
The new fee "establishes reasonable relationship between new residential development and the need for new parkland and facilities to meet growth demands," Teixeira told the Council last summer.
The ordinance doesn't set fee amounts, only the formula for calculating them based on density, parkland acres required per 1,000 residents, and the fair market value of land - established by an annual survey. Estimates show revenue from these fees delivering $385 to $452 million to the city over the next 20 years. The money will be used principally to buy land and develop new parks.
Santa Clara is the last city in the area to impose development fees. Previously, the City's only residential development fee was a $15/bedroom fee set in the 1960s. Trends over the last 30 years have straight-jacketed local governments options for funding infrastructure - including Prop 13, declining state and federal grants, the shuttering of the state's redevelopment agencies, and decreasing support for infrastructure bond measures.