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27 <br /> <br />for the provision of housing that is affordable to extremely low income, very low income, <br />lower income, and moderate income households in the city, and for the administration <br />and compliance monitoring of the City’s affordable housing program. <br /> <br />For residential condominium and apartment projects the amount of fee collected is $20 <br />per square foot of residential floor area (as defined in Resolution No. 15462). For the <br />Project this amounts to an Affordable Housing Impact Fee of $1,738,000.00 that will be <br />collected at time of building permit issuance. Citing the nexus study the City <br />commissioned to aid in the calculation of a reasonable affordable housing impact fee, <br />the Appellant asserts that the Project creates a demand for 25 affordable housing units, <br />and questions how the City plans to make up the difference between the collected fee <br />and the amount of money it would take to construct the affordable units generated by <br />the Project. <br /> <br />The estimated number of units calculated in the nexus study is used to derive a <br />maximum justified nexus-based fee; however, Redwood City, like the majority of cities <br />that adopt affordable housing impact fees, chose to adopt a fee at a lower level than the <br />maximum justified fee. This decision was a conscious one, as outlined in Resolution <br />No. 15462, to “ensure that development projects remain economically feasible, the <br />recommended housing impact feesSare lower than the maximum amount needed to <br />fully mitigate the burdens created by new development on the need for affordable <br />housing as determined by the Nexus Study.” <br /> <br />The 603 Jefferson project is the first downtown development project that would be <br />subject to the affordable housing impact fee that was adopted in 2015. In fact, the <br />impact fee of $1,738,000.00 that would be paid by the Project is substantially more than <br />the community benefits that were provided by other recent downtown projects. For <br />example, the 601 Marshall project provided benefits totaling $815,000.00 (none for <br />affordable housing); 2075 Broadway provided benefits totaling $460,000.00 (including <br />$100,000 for affordable housing); and the 815 Hamilton project is providing community <br />benefits through free public parking on nights and weekends, three years of free rent on <br />a Police Department sub-station at the Fox Theater office, and 12 free community <br />events at the Fox Theater. <br /> <br />Payment of impact fees, whether for affordable housing, parks, or transportation, helps <br />to finance certain needs of the community without having to fully subsidize the needs <br />through the City’s general fund. To this end, the payment of impact fees does benefit <br />the immediate neighborhood (fees that fund infrastructure improvements) as well as the <br />community overall (protection of general funds for reserves or other uses). <br /> <br />8.C. - Page 27