City panel fails to embrace builder fee cuts
| Friday, May 06 2011 11:00 PM
Last Updated Friday, May 06 2011 11:00 PM
A Bakersfield City Council committee continued to wrestle Friday with whether lowering traffic impact fees would spur new housing construction enough to justify the cost, and in the end a new idea emerged: giving buyers of new homes a $3,000 subsidy.
The Planning and Development Committee, made up of Councilmembers Harold Hanson, Ken Weir and Sue Benham, did not formally vote on whether to send to the full ctrouncil a temporary plan to lower development fees.
But it was pretty clear the idea wouldn't go far given city staffers' continuing objection. On Friday they pointed out a number of reasons why it was a bad idea: the fee has been fought over in court and upheld, so any change could provoke additional litigation; the money is needed to match federal freeway-building funds; there are 30,000 lots with lower transportation fees already set in stone; and changes would undermine assumptions in regional transportation plans, endangering road money and also affecting the county of Kern.
Hanson said after the meeting that with foreclosed homes going for a median average price of $105,000 and short-sale homes for $138,000, there's not going to be much of a market for new homes until the former are sold.
He said while he sympathizes greatly with new home builders struggling to make a living, "we're going to have to suffer through this whole thing" before the market comes back.
The handful of home builders and industry representatives who attended Friday's meeting didn't put up much of a fight, clearly feeling it would be fruitless. They have argued that lowering development fees would benefit the whole community by spurring economic activity.
The City Council raised traffic impact fees in July 2009 to nearly $13,000 per new home, up from $7,000 to $9,500. The county adopted the same fee schedule.
Scott Thayer, vice president of land development and commercial properties for Castle & Cooke, urged the committee Friday to consider at least extending the life of recorded maps an additional year.
"We're looking for help," Thayer told the committee. "It would be really nice to have two years to build."
The proposal, which the committee forwarded to the full council, would give builders more time to construct projects under existing "vesting" rights including lower fees. Allowing an additional year would affect 321 residential lots, city staffers said in a report.
They also said they have no objection to the idea except it would cost the city's Transportation Development Fund $1.6 million. Commercial and industrial projects would be affected, too, the report says, but the cost to the city is harder to gauge because they vary in type more. They estimated the loss of future revenue would be no more than $7 per square foot.
Councilman Weir proposed another idea: a pilot program under which the city would subsidize by $3,000 each a person's purchase of a new home. The program would phase out when certain economic indicators come to pass.
Weir argued the plan would be cost-neutral to the city because the money going out would be offset by the money coming in, such as tax revenue, as a result of a home being built.
Colleagues Benham and Hanson said they'd vote no if they had to vote today. But they promised to be open-minded about it going forward.
Weir will work with city staffers to refine the idea. The issue is expected to come back to the committee within about a month.
City Manager Alan Tandy pointed out that city staff is already working on a slew of council referrals and trying to put a new budget together, but Weir was adamant that work on the concept not be put on the back burner.
"I made a referral in October to talk about the topic," Weir said. "I don't want to delay it a lot."
