Plan OKd to Make Development Help Pay Way

Hoping to find a way to make development “pay for itself,” the San Diego City Council will make builders begin paying a new fee to finance roads, libraries and other public facilities needed because of their projects.

In what has become an almost annual legislative exercise to grapple with one of the thorniest issues in San Diego politics, the council narrowly passed a plan late Monday night that establishes so-called “citywide impact fees” designed to recover part of the costs of streets, parks, fire and police stations and other public facilities necessitated by growth.

A watered-down version of a tougher proposal debated last summer, the growth-control program also promotes efforts to improve air quality and encourages the preservation of hillsides and wetlands as open space.

But the council disappointed some environmentalists, and Mayor Maureen O’Connor, by rejecting the boldest component of the growth proposal: a controversial plan to limit future development by linking building permits to strict standards for traffic congestion.

“No question, I would have liked it stronger, but the votes weren’t there,” O’Connor said of the plan, approved by a 5-3 vote. “It would have been an extremely strong program if we’d gotten the transportation (limits). But we got 75% of what I wanted.”

Business leaders, who had warned that some of the stringent restrictions originally proposed would worsen the problems posed by the nationwide economic downturn, also were generally pleased with the compromise. In recognition of economic conditions, the council agreed to phase in the impact fees--estimated to raise more than $850 million during the next two decades--over three years.

“They generally went in the direction we had asked,” said Wayne Raffesberger, executive director of San Diegans Inc., a downtown business group. “It’s a good, balanced plan I think most people can live with.”

Slow-growth activist Peter Navarro called the fees only a “modest and partial solution to San Diego’s pressing growth problems.”

Unlike existing fees charged to developers and home buyers to help finance the schools, parks and branch libraries in their particular neighborhood, the new assessments are designed to collect revenue needed for facilities such as police stations, a central library and open space that serve the entire city.

Monday night’s five-hour debate followed the now-familiar script from San Diego’s earlier growth battles, with some environmentalists pressing for tougher growth controls than those being debated as developers and business leaders issued doomsday warnings about the measures under consideration.

If some of the strictest proposals were adopted, opponents cautioned, tens of thousands of jobs would be lost, housing costs would soar, retailers ranging from supermarkets to gas stations would abandon the city for surrounding communities, and residential and industrial development would be severely curtailed, thereby reducing the fees’ estimated revenue. Over the next month, a council committee will consider exempting certain businesses from the fees, which will begin being assessed in 60 days.

But environmentalists said failure to toughen existing growth standards would worsen air quality and traffic problems while delaying an inevitable request for the additional funds needed for public facilities.

“You have a real simple choice: Is the money going to come from developers or taxpayers?” said Richard Carson, economic adviser to the slow-growth group Prevent Los Angelization Now.

Under the three-year phase-in for the new fees, the charges will be discounted 75% the first year, 50% the second year and 25% the third year.

That discount schedule, supporters said, would help to soften the fees’ impact on developers at a time when the nation’s economy appears to be entering a recession. But Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer complained that it could prompt a spurt in “helter-skelter, willy-nilly” development as builders rushed to take advantage of the discounts.

During the first year, the new fees, which will be imposed both on residential and commercial development, are estimated at about $1,100 for single-family homes and 95 cents per square foot for industrial projects, according to city planners. Because those dollar amounts represent the 75% discount, the full fees--which, in the absence of future council action would be imposed in late 1993--equal about $4,400 and $3.90 per square foot, respectively.

With the nation’s economy already acting as a brake on development, the additional burden of the new fees, Councilman Ron Roberts argued, could further drive up housing expenses and discourage businesses from expanding.

“I’ll bet there’s not another city in the country discussing increasing development fees at this point,” said Roberts, who was joined by Councilmen Bob Filner and Bruce Henderson in opposing the plan. With Councilman Wes Pratt absent due to illness, the plan’s backers included O’Connor, Wolfsheimer, John Hartley, Linda Bernhardt and Judy McCarty.

The rejected proposal to link building permits to traffic levels drew strong condemnation from developers and council members alike, who argued that it would perpetuate the city’s dependence on automobiles while doing little or nothing to improve air quality.