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Parks department proposes five-fold increase in new home
development fee
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — The San Diego Parks and
Recreation Department is proposing a major increase in fees for
the Park Land Dedication Ordinance, which charges developers who
apply for building permits in unincorporated parts of the
county. At an Alpine Planning Group meeting held last Thursday,
July 27, members got a presentation about the proposal from
county staff.
“The cost for your area is $800 per dwelling unit now,
“ said county parks staff Gustavo Godoy. “We're proposing
$4,413.”
The proposed increase, more than $3,000 per home in
most areas, is scheduled to go before the San Diego Board of
Supervisors in September.
PLDO fees are charged to developers in unincorporated
areas to mitigate some of the environmental impacts, by
providing money to be used for local parks. The county collects
the fees and either uses the money directly for county parks —
with the advice of the local planning board — or teams up with a
local parks district or a school district.
The money can be used for acquiring land or building
improvements such as playgrounds, ball fields and swimming
pools, according to Matt Bohan, parks department development
director, who was at Thursday’s meeting.
“The current fee amount was first established in the
mid 80s,” Bohan said. “That amount at this moment is, honestly,
really low. It doesn't provide us the money we need to make
improvements and develop parks throughout the county.”
The size of the fee increase comes from calculating
rises in the cost of land and the cost of construction over the
last 20 years, he said.
“We looked at actual land sales in area throughout the
county,” Bohan said.
The county is split up into more than 20 park planning
areas and the money gathered from building permits in an area is
reserved for that area. The Alpine Park Planning Area PLDO
coffers currently hold $361,000, to be used to acquire land or
develop parks. The money can't, however, be used for regional
open space preserves, according to Bohan.
The increase in fees would bring much more money into
the Alpine area to develop more park space. The county goal is
to reach three acres of park space for every 1,000 residents in
any area.
George Barnett spoke on the issue at the meeting.
Barnett is chair of the parks subcommittee for the Alpine
Revitalization Committee and sits on the APG’s Recreation, Parks
and Conservation Subcommittee. He spoke in favor of the proposal
and referenced a recent study he did on various communities that
are about the same size as Alpine.
“Other towns our size spend on average $750,000 on
operating cost alone, and $250,000 on capital improvements each
year,” Barnett said. “Towns our size seem to spend about $1
million dollars a year on parks.”
"We need to really get together as a community and work
to find and support these sources of funding for parks,” Barnett
said, “because the $361,000 we've got in our kitty right now is
maybe going to buy us a couple swing sets.”
According to Bohan, the PLDO fee is charged only on new
developments, not on remodel projects.
The parks department is using numbers projected through
the current GP 2020 process. Currently GP 2020 shows just over
6,000 dwelling units in Alpine. The projections for future
growth estimate that that number will rise to approximately
10,500 acres — numbers that have been questioned on several
locations by planning group members throughout the process.
“We think now is the time to start planning for that
increase in population,” Godoy said.
“There's a bit of a discrepancy between what the county
has figured and what the community thinks is going to happen
based on the available land,” Wood said.
While this program will provide more money for parks in
Alpine, it could also potentially raise the cost to buyers, as
builders might simply pass along the extra cost to buyers.
“It certainly is going to raise the cost of developing
land,” Bohan admitted.
“How does this increase help us achieve affordable
housing,” asked board member Mark Price.
According to Bohan, the fee is assessed for any type of
development, be it apartments, condos or houses. “It's a single
fee for any type of dwelling unit,” he said.
Bohan verified Price's comment that, “even if you're
building 400 single-family, low-income units, the cost is still
going to be forty-four hundred per dwelling unit.”
He added that there care several things that developers can do
to decrease fee amounts on individual projects.
“There is a bit of a sliding scale on how these fees
are assessed; in what developers can do to get credit against
them,” Bohan said.
“There are opportunities under the ordinance for credit
against your fees for providing low-income housing, as well as
for developments that provide park space for their tenants, like
a pool or playground,” Bohan said.
These credits would be based on the amount of square
footage or acreage of land provided.
Board members George Wood and Jim Easterling questioned
the staff about what would happen if land was donated for park
space — no doubt referencing the current offer by Wright's Field
landowner Richard Singer, to donate 83 acres of the remaining
143 to the community for use as an active park and to build
homes on the other 60 acres.
According to Bohan, in the case of a developer who
offers to dedicate land for a park, the applicant is eligible
for credit against the PLDO fees.
“The amount of land donated might satisfy some of the
applicants fees, it could even possibly satisfy all of the PLDO
fees,” Bohan said.
“What if we're talking about 60 acres of land donated,”
asked Wood.
“That would be a very large amount of land,” Bohan
answered. “We've not seen a dedication for a park site or
donation of that size.”
After hearing the county presentation, APG members
decided to refer the issue to member Brad Bailey and the APG
parks subcommittee. County staff requested some form of letter
stating the planning group’s opinion be submitted in the next
month.
If approved by the board of supervisors in September
the fee increase would take effect after 60 days.
 E-mail
Christy Scott
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