Development Impact Fee in Palo Alto, by BC

From: Better Cupertino
Date: Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 1:49 PM
Subject: Development Impact Fee in Palo Alto
To: City Council <citycouncil@cupertino.org>, planning@cupertino.org, David Brandt davidb@cupertino.org

RE: Funding for Civic Center and other infrastructure support

Dear Mayor Sinks, Vice Mayor Chang, Councilmembers and Planning Commissioners,

Palo Alto has been using charging "Development Impact Fee" (DIF) to enhance their infrastructure since 2002, as this staff report reveals:

A brief summary of Palo Alto’s current DIFs (detailed in Attachment B) follows, with enactment dates in parentheses:

1.      Housing Impact Fees for commercial and industrial projects (1984 and updated 2004)
2.      Traffic Impact fees in the Stanford Research Park and San Antonio/East Bayshore areas (1989)
3.      In-lieu parking fee for downtown development (1995)
4.      Parks (2002)
5.      Community Centers (2002)
6.      Libraries (2002)
7.      Transportation (2007)

Every year Palo Alto makes up a Facilities Needs list and adjust their DIF to pay for capitol projects. This year the DIF also includes "Public Safety Facilities" to pay for a police station and "General Government Facilicies", besides "Parks", "Community Centers" and "Libraries". In addition to DIF, they also have a separate Transportation Impact Fee. And also Parking Facitlies Fee for development which does not provide sufficient parking, since they will use the city streets and city garages.

Palo Also has a Finance Committee to help the Council look at various funding options. In 2012, Palo Alto also did a comparative survey of DIF used in various bay area cities.

Please do not use "community benefits" (or voluntary community amenities) as a proper funding source for city facility needs.

Please talk a citywide 25-year view of the facilities needs, instead of just one project at a time, like the Civic Center. Please adopt a proper procedure to assess various funding options, including Development Impact Fee, which is widely used by many cities.

Sincerely,

 

BetterCupertino