City, School Board OK New Builder Fees

Ending their two-year battle over housing construction, the city and school district have agreed to a new schedule of developer fees to build schools.

The City Council, by a 4-1 vote Wednesday night, set fees on new homes ranging from $960 to $4,515 per unit to pay for the additional schools the new residents will need.

On Tuesday, the Corona-Norco school board voted unanimously to accept those fees and ordered its attorneys to drop more than 40 lawsuits it has filed against the city and developers.

The new fees are $3,295 for homes with densities between eight and 20 units per acre, $3,972 for homes between two and eight per acre and $4,515 for “estate” homes with densities of less than two per acre.

Apartments with two or more bedrooms will be subject to a $3,295 fee, studios and one-bedroom units, a $960 fee.

Councilman R. Gary Miller cast the only dissenting vote on the fee schedule. He said fees for small apartments are unfair because they are unlikely to bring new students to the schools.

Miller also questioned the propriety of charging a fixed fee for all large-lot homes, without regard to their value.

The city previously charged developers a flat fee of $2,610 per dwelling unit--regardless of size or density--to finance school construction, prompting the school board to file dozens of lawsuits claiming the fees were insufficient to mitigate the effect of new population on the district.

Under the resolutions passed Tuesday and Wednesday, “adult-only” or senior citizen mobile home parks, federally subsidized senior citizen housing, and remodeling and reconstruction projects are exempt from fees, as are industrial and commercial buildings.

The fee schedule will be reviewed in November, then annually, for adjustment.