Title
Hearing to consider proposed public safety impact fee for a Sheriff's substation to serve the western end of El Dorado County; and adoption of Resolution 049-2007 setting new public safety impact fees for new development effective April 30, 2007.
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Fiscal Impact/Change to Net County Cost:
The MuniFinancial Study indicates that the imposition of a public safety impact fee would generate an estimated $2.3 million over the next 18 years. The remaining $4.3 million must be funded from other sources, as this cost is attributable to existing development. At this time, the proposed Capital Improvement Plan includes $1.6 million for this facility.
Background:
The Sheriff currently leases space to house its El Dorado Hills substation. On January 30, 2006, the Board of Supervisors declared that the construction of a Sheriff Substation to serve the El Dorado Hills/Cameron Park area to be a high priority project. In order to identify possible funding streams for this project, the Board approved a contract with MuniFinancial at its February 7, 2006 meeting. The consultant prepared a Public Safety Impact Fee analysis in accordance with the requirements of the Mitigation Fee Act. The study includes public safety facilities for the western end of the County, including the communities of El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Latrobe, Shingle Springs, and Rescue.
Issues/Analysis:
Fee Approach. In its General Plan, the County has adopted a minimum response time standard of eight minutes for 80% of the its population. Given this standard, the County has determined that a new, larger substation is needed to maintain acceptable service levels as new development occurs. With a new larger substation, the County will raise its public safety facility standards by building facilities to a higher standard than the existing standard. By design, the substation facility that is planned will exceed the capacity required to merely serve new development and will also increase the facility standard for existing members of the service population. For new development to fund facilities at the higher standard, the County must fund existing development's fair share of raising the standard with non-impact fee funding sources.
Fee Methodology. The methodology for the proposed fees s summarized below:
§ What is the growth in the service population between 2007 and 2025? The service population is a combination of new residents expected in the area and new workers in new nonresidential development. The number of single family and multifamily residential units from the El Dorado Hills and Cameron Park Community Service Districts are multiplied by a density factor to derive population estimates for 2007 (existing residents) and 2025 (projected population). The difference is the number of new residents that need to be covered through the proposed impact fee. The population estimate for workers is calculated in the same way, with an adjustment that recognizes that workers are in the area only 40 hours out of 168 hours in a week.
Based on this analysis, the fee calculation assumes a service population of 67,120 by 2025, an increase of 23,280 through the projection period. Table 1 of the MuniFinancial Report provides the calculation of the population projections (see attachment Table 1).
§ What is the cost of new facilities per capita? The cost of the substation is estimated at $6.5 million. The substation cost is divided by the total projected service population of 67,120 to render a facility cost per capita of $97. Table 3 of the MuniFinancial Report provides the calculation of the cost per capita (see attachment Table 3).
§ What is the cost of new facilities attributable to new development? The service population is expected to grow by 23,280 through 2025. The facility cost per capita of $97 is multiplied by the service population growth of 23,280 to determine the cost of the planned facility attributable to new development. Table 4 of the MuniFinancial Report provides the calculation of the projected fee revenue (See Attached Table 4).
Based on the methodology, the public safety impact fee would generate almost $2.3 million, or 34.7% of the cost of the new substation. The remaining $4.3 million must be funded with other sources, as it is attributable to raising the facility standard for existing development.
Impact Fee Schedule. The proposed impact fee schedule is derived by converting the cost per capita to a fee per unit based on dwelling unit and building space densities, as shown on Table 5, page 11 of MuniFinancial report. (See Attached Table 5)
Findings to be adopted. The Mitigation Fee Act, adopted with the passage of Assembly Bill 1600 in 1987, requires that the Board of Supervisors adopt five findings when adopting fees. These five findings related to the proposed Public Safety Impact Fee are listed below:
§ Fee Purpose - It is County policy that new development will not burden the existing service population with the cost of facilities required to accommodate growth. This is consistent with policies 5.1.2.2 (allowing conditions to ensure maintenance of service standards) and 5.7.4.2 (providing for the County's ability to provide protection to existing development) in the El Dorado County General Plan. The purpose of the proposed fees is to implement this policy by providing a funding source from new development for capital improvements to serve that development. The fees advance a legitimate County interest by enabling the County to provide public safety services to new development.
§ Use of Fee Revenues - The fees collected through the public safety impact fee would be available to fund expanded public safety facilities to serve new development.
§ Relationship between Use of Fees and New Development - The fees collected through the public safety impact fee are restricted to land acquisition, facility and building construction, and associated equipment and vehicle purchases. Facilites funded by the fees are expected to provide public safety facilities accessible to the additional residents and workers associated with new development in the sub-area of the County identified for this study.
§ Relationship between Need for Facilities and New Development - The need for public safety facilities is based on a facility standard that represents the demand generated by new development, measured across land use types. Service population standards are calculated based on the number of residents associated with residential development and the number of workers associated with nonresidential development, adjusted for the relative use demand between residential and nonresidential development.
§ Relationship between Fee Amount and Cost of Facilities Attributable to New Development - The resulting public safety impact fee for a specific project is based on the project's size or increases in service population, ensuring a reasonable relationship between a specific new development and the cost of the facilities attributable to that project.
CEQA Impact. In addition, the Board must make a finding related to the level of environmental review required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The proposed Public Safety Facilities Impact Fee has been developed to implement various public service policies and objectives of the 2004 El Dorado County General Plan, including but not limited top, Policies 5.1.1.1, 5.1.2.1, 5.1.3.2, and 5.7.3.1. The adoption of the Public Safety Facilities Impact Fee is part of the program covered by the Environmental Impact Report (F.E.I.R. SCH2001082030) prepared for the 2004 El Dorado County General Plan. The adoption of this Fee will not result in any other additional impacts that were not previously addressed in that F.E.I.R. Thus, the County intends to rely upon that F.E.I.R. in adopting this fee.
Attached to this memo is a copy of the Public Safety Facilities Impact Fee Study, which has been available for public inspection and review in the Office of the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors since Friday, February 16, which is more than 10 days prior to the date of this Public Hearing. The Resolution adopting the fee is also attached to this memo.
Action to be taken following Board approval:
Over the next 60 days, staff will work with the Development Services Department and Information Technologies to implement the public safety impact fee into the schedule of charges for new development.
Contact: Joe Harn - x.5476, Louis B. Green - x. 5770, Laura S. Gill - x. 5530
Concurrences: