AgdaPkt 2020-11-09 Joint SA PFA - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ms. Lindy Chan, Principal Planner City of Redwood City, Planning Services July 13, 2020 Page 7 Because the District currently exceeds capacity, it is further anticipated that the Project, when viewed in conjunction with numerous other projects, will cause the District to need new or physically altered school facilities, including at Sequoia High School. The Initial Study and Draft EIR were required to provide sufficient information for the public and lead agency to assess these impacts and potential mitigation measures. These documents do not provide this information. Rather, the Initial Study and Draft EIR inappropriately consider the Project's school services impacts in a vacuum, in violation of CEQA requirements. B. The Draft EIR contains an inadequate discussion of "school -related" impacts. In addition to impacts on the District's facilities, the Draft EIR fails to analyze probable Project impacts "related to" schools in an adequate fashion, as required by CEQA and case law interpreting CEQA. In disregarding these impacts, the Draft EIR and Initial Study attempt to rely on Government Code section 65996, enacted by SB 50. However, reliance on SB 50 and Government Code section 65996 as a panacea to all impacts caused by the Project on the District demonstrates a misunderstanding regarding the law and developer fees. By way of background, developer fees are fees that may be levied or imposed in connection with or made conditions of any legislative or adjudicative act by a local agency involving planning, use, or development of real property. (Ed. Code § 17620.) "Level 1" developer fees are levied against residential and commercial or industrial developments on a price per square foot basis. If a district is able to establish a sufficient "nexus" between the expected impacts of residential and commercial development and the district's needs for facilities funding, then the district may charge up to $4.08 per sf of residential development, and up to $0.66 per sf of commercial development, which maximum amounts may be increased every two years based on the statewide cost index for class B construction. From a practical standpoint, the amount of developer fees received by school districts typically fall woefully short of alleviating the impacts caused by development. This is due largely to the facts that: (1) statutory developer fee amounts fail to acknowledge the differences in costs of school construction from one district to another, which particularly burdens school districts in the Bay Area, where both land and construction costs exceed other parts of the state; (2) the developer fee amounts fail to contemplate the special facilities needs of those districts experiencing rapid growth, such as the need for portables; and (3) the adjustment formula for developer fees is based on a "construction cost index" and does not include indexing related to the increases in land costs, resulting in the actual costs of facilities (i.e., land and improvements) increasing at a greater rate than the adjustment. The inadequacy of developer fees as a source of funding for school facilities has forced school districts to rely increasingly on other sources of funding, primarily including local bond funds and State bond funds administered under the State Facilities Program (SFP). However, these sources of funds can be equally unreliable. Local bond funds are difficult to generate, as local bonds are subject to school district bonding capacity limitations and voter approval. State funds are also unreliable and take considerable time to obtain, especially during this time of funding uncertainty caused by the outbreak of COVID-19. Either way, the funding formula was never