Planning Comission takes a stand
Submitted by jarah on Mon, 09/25/2006 - 09:52.
The Fresno Planning Commission rejected plans for a new subdivision near Shaw and 99, in protest of the City's glacial movement on increasing development fees.
Over a year ago the council voted to increase development fees, contingent on a plan detailing how to spend the money, which seems to have been lost in a sea of City staffers. Fresno has some of the lowest development fees in the state, and the fact that it's taken over a year after approval to actually implement an increase is ridiculous, and leaves no doubt as to the influence carried by developers at City Hall.
More to the story...
The City (Public Works) has been holding meetings every Thursday afternoon to review a proposal presented to the Council in August to raise street impact fees. This proposal would result in street impact fees (one of many paid by developers) increasing over 500% in certain parts of the city, including the Southeast and Southwest, which are the areas most in need of new development.
Prior to presentation to the Council the proposal was not made available to the Administration, Council or the public. The proposed fees only relate to street impacts and are based on many, many assumptions. The Council, including Sterling and Boyajian (not exactly known to be in the pockets of developers) had many issues with the conclusions and challenged Public Works to bring forward a proposal that would not result in most new development coming to a halt or at the minimum a significant slowdown. The proposal is a public document and can be read by any person who requestes it from Public Works.
A true comparison of Fresno development fees to other city's development fees is very difficult and does not account for the very different economics of other parts of the state. It is easy to say, "Fresno is 30% of City X", but what about the cost of housing, food, entertainment in City X? Development fees ultimately are passed along to the homeowner, business owner, tenant and customer. Are we ready to see an significant increase in the cost to do business and to live in Fresno? Do we think we can sustain our growth if it costs 25% more to open a small business or 15% more to buy an entry level house? I would argue that our region's average incomes and our region's economy cannot support the same costs to own a home, shop or run a business as NorCal and SoCal.
To claify, developers (a rather loosely defined term) have not objected to new fees. Quite the contrary, there is a recognition that the old system, called UGM, has not worked and will not work for a rapidly growing city. The majority of the people attending these meetings feel a better system of fees needs to be put into place to allow for the City to construct roads in newly developed areas.
I suggest that interested people contact Public Works to get the time and location and then attend one of these meetings before they come to the conclusion that developers are against fee increases.
Post new comment