YORBA LINDA : Plan Links Building to School Facilities

A special city committee will consider a proposal to broaden the City Council’s power to accept or reject a housing project based on a developer’s plans to provide new school facilities.

Proposed by the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District, the policy follows several recent court rulings which held that cities and counties could deny a project if a builder failed to provide funding for education.

The school district’s idea outlines what the City Council could do if no agreement is reached with a developer on how much educational facilities to provide.

“The lack of an agreement between the school district and the developer will be considered reason for possible denial and/or conditional approval of a project,” the policy states.

Developers are already required to pay state-imposed fees for schools, but they fall far short of paying the cost of new buildings and additional teachers. For the 1991-92 school year, planners estimate that the Placentia-Yorba Linda district will receive $350,000 in developer fees, which will pay only a share of the cost of leasing portable classrooms.

Although the Placentia-Yorba Linda district has accommodated students so far, the enrollment of just over 22,000 could grow significantly if the economy improves and Yorba Linda grows at the pace of the 1980s.

In the past decade, the city’s population rose from 28,000 in 1980 to 52,500 in 1990. Additional growth is expected for the city’s east end and the north Fairmont Boulevard area.

“This shows that the city is willing to have adequate support for schools,” said Kim Stallings, the district’s assistant superintendent for administrative services. “We think it’s significant, and we hope other cities do the same thing.”

City planners support the district’s proposal, which will go before the special committee when it reviews the Yorba Linda General Plan in December.

“The council can’t give away its authority, but it can get a more equitable situation for the school district,” said Phillip Paxton, Yorba Linda’s director of community development.

Fast-growing areas are placing similar policies in their general plans. For years, many cities have kept a watchful eye on a developer’s ability to provide public facilities such as streets, sewers, storm drains and parks. Meanwhile, school districts have had to finance schools mainly from redevelopment money, as well as state school construction funds, which are now depleted.

City officials say that developers already work with the district, but on an informal basis. “This puts it on record,” Paxton said. “It requires the schools and developers to sit down and discuss it.”