The developer bonus tucked into the school bond on your ballot
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2020/02/the-developer-bonus-tucked-into-school.html
By Matt
Levin, CalMatters |
California voters are being asked to approve a controversial
measure making it easier for developers to build apartment buildings within a
half-mile of public transit.
Most will think they’re only voting on whether the state should
borrow more money to fix broken air conditioners in schools.
On its face this new Proposition 13 — the only statewide ballot
measure to appear on the ballot for California’s March 3 presidential primary — asks voters for $15 billion in state
bonds to finance the construction and renovation of California K-12 schools and
public universities.
But tucked into the ballot measure’s language is a provision that
frees new multi-family developments around subway stops and bus stations from
school impact fees.
Developers say such levies unnecessarily drive up the cost of
desperately needed new housing. Education finance experts say they are a pillar
of some school district’s budgets and defray the cost of added enrollment from
new students.
Nearly every major education group in the state — teachers unions,
school boards, charter schools — supports the bond, arguing that billions
in new statewide funding far outweighs the potential loss of developer fee
revenue. But even the lawmaker who authored the ballot measure has some
heartburn over how that provision will impact certain school districts
— so much so that he thinks schools could need more money down the line.
“What we need to do at a state level is we need to watch what
fiscal impact this has on school districts across the state,” said Assemblyman
Patrick O’Donnell, Democrat from Long Beach and author of the bond. “If it’s
significantly impactful we may have to backfill the fees that the districts
will lose because of this policy.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has endorsed the ballot measure, has long
sought to incentivize more homebuilding around public transportation. The goals
are twofold: fill the state’s crushing housing shortage, and reduce carbon
emissions from long commutes.
But major legislative efforts to accomplish those feats have so
far fizzled. Senate Bill 50, a proposal from San Francisco Democratic Sen.
Scott Wiener to force cities to allow apartment buildings around transit and
eliminate single-family-only neighborhoods, failed to clear the state Senate earlier this year.
“Keep in mind that transit-oriented housing is what we need for
climate reasons, what we need for congestion relief reasons, it’s what we need
overall,” said Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry
Association. The association, a developers’ trade group, has spent more than
$1.5 million backing the ballot measure.
O’Donnell said the developer fee provisions were inserted into the
bond measure during prolonged negotiations with the Newsom administration. The
governor’s office did not respond to request for comment.
The fee waivers in this Prop. 13 (not to be confused with the property tax-cutting Prop. 13 voters passed in 1978) don’t come close to
the type of radical transformation proposed by Wiener. But they satisfy another
complaint from developers over why new construction is so difficult in
California: the “impact fees” local governments charge new homebuilding.
According to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, roughly
90% of school districts have raised around $10 billion from new housing
developments since 2002. While the fees make up a relatively small
portion of school budgets, they are a key pillar in financing the construction
of new schools or facilities.
Fees can total from the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars
per unit, which developers argue manifest in higher rents and home prices.
Prop. 13 would not only eliminate those fees for apartments near transit, but
would reduce by 20% whatever a school district is charging new apartment
buildings anywhere.
Single-family-only developments — like many master-planned
suburban communities marketed towards young families with children — would
receive no benefit from the ballot measure.
The rationale for imposing school fees on new developments is
intuitive:
Developers argue that in an era of declining school enrollment,
the idea that new apartment buildings in urban corridors should be charged for
impacts on local schools is misguided. Younger, single adults are more likely
to live in those apartments than nuclear families with school-age children.
But ironically, the scale of California’s housing affordability
crisis — where a single-family home costs nearly $600,000 — has meant families
are increasingly opting for an apartment over the McMansion in the ‘burbs.
In “The Crossings at Montague”, a 468-unit apartment complex north
of San Jose, leasing consultant Rosio Tafoya has seen a steady increase in the
number of families interested in renting. A two-bedroom, one-bath now goes for
$2,880 a month.
“When I first started it was mainly roommates, and now most of the
time we’re getting families,” said Tafoya.
The big attraction for the tech transplants with a growing family?
The schools.
“We’ve had residents that come and say they want to live here
because we want to start kindergarten here,” said Tafoya.
CalMatters.org is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and
politics.
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