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Page 4 of 12 <br />City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.org <br />ANALYSIS <br />The Mitigation Fee Act (Government Code §66000) requires agencies to identify a reasonable relationship, <br />or nexus, between an impact fee and new development, and to make findings regarding: (a) the purpose <br />of the fee; (b) what mitigation projects the fee will be used to fund; (c) the nexus between the fee’s use <br />and the type of development on which the fee will be imposed; (d) the nexus between the need for the <br />public facility and the type of development on which the fee will be imposed; and (e) the nexus between <br />the amount of the fee and the cost of the public facility attributable to the development upon which the <br />fee is imposed. The prior drafts of the Nexus Study were designed to support these findings, and the final <br />Nexus Study that will be presented to Council for adoption at a later date will also support these findings. <br />All drafts of the Nexus Study have calculated the parkland dedication requirement for new development <br />based on the 3 acres per 1,000 residents standard. Following an initial research effort involving five Bay <br />Area cities in 2020, that was stalled by the global COVID-19 pandemic, EPS updated the fees and added a <br />sixth city and one alternate scenario to the draft Nexus Study. The comparison cities were selected based <br />on similar population sizes, growth patterns, and cost of living. The cities used for comparison in this study <br />were Mountain View, Palo Alto, Daly City, San Mateo, San Bruno, and Sunnyvale. The scope of fees <br />considered in this study are those assessed between the time a project is submitted to a city’s planning <br />department and the issuance of a building permit and final occupancy. This update focused on <br />capturing increases in fees and changes in fee structure that could be established through online <br />research. The 2021 update captured several fee changes and refined the presentation of the results. To <br />better explain the fees in each of the seven cities (including Redwood City), it was necessary to create <br />a uniform base from which to compare. <br />To allow for comparison across different types of development, ten hypothetical projects were <br />developed. In 2021, an alternative was added to examine the Quimby Act fees that would only be applied <br />for a new subdivision and the larger Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) project was removed because it could <br />not be clearly standardized for comparison. Further analysis on those is provided later. The project <br />valuation for each project was standardized at the highest stated value for a comparison city (half of the <br />comparison cities allow project developers to determine the value and half use standardized tables). <br />These projects were assessed for the following fees: <br />1. Planning Fees: associated with the cost of reviewing development plans to ensure that <br />they meet city planning and zoning requirements <br />2. Plan Check and Building Fees: associated with the cost of evaluating how a proposed <br />project meets building, engineering, and public works codes <br />3. Infrastructure, Impact and District Fees: associated with the cost imposed on the <br />city infrastructure by increased population, traffic, etc. <br /> <br />Within the above groupings of fees, some of the specific items include the following (note that <br />not all the fees listed exist in each city): <br /> <br />1% for Art Fee <br />Affordable Housing Impact Fee <br />Community Center Fee <br />Library Fee <br />Transportation Impact Fee <br />Fire Service Meter Installation Charge <br />7.A. - Page 4 of 66 <br />116