The Santa Rosa City Council met on January 30, 2024, in a combined closed session (12:30 PM), study session (2:00 PM), and regular meeting (starting at 4:00 PM). The council approved consent items, adopted the 2024 Federal Legislative Platform, accepted the third annual Community Wildfire Protection Plan report, and approved bond issuance for Orchard Commons. Public comments featured repeated calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as support for violence prevention and other local issues.
All consent items passed unanimously (7-0).
Good afternoon. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. So before we dive into the particulars of the study, I just wanted to give a brief description on the two different fee types that really affect development proposals. The first is a service fee. That's the focus of the conversation today. It's also referred to as a user fee often or miscellaneous fees. Those really go into the staff costs that are associated with delivering specific services out of the department. In economic planning and economic development, the core building functions and planning functions are included in this. So we have planning review, we have permit processing, we have building and engineering plan review and inspection. The vast majority of those hours for those services do come out of planning and economic development. I believe it's also important to note that development services is handled citywide. There are quite a few departments and individuals in transportation and public works, water, fire, and parking that actually assist with development related services. Those hours are incorporated in this study as well. The other fee type that we see on the development side are what are referred to as impact fees. Impact fees are getting a lot of conversation at the state level right now. Impact fees are very different. That is a one-time fee that a development pays for its proportionate fair share impact on public infrastructure. So that fee is collected and it goes into programming parks, streets, other public infrastructure components to provide service to that development long term. A lot of conversations about waivers and deferrals at the state level. Assembly bill number 602 addresses the nexus fee studies associated with impact fees and how those are prepared. Very important to note these fees are not part of that. So this is not covered under Assembly Bill No. We do a fee study to show the relationship between the fee and the service provided, but it's not part of that. Just quickly the background on our service fees. Service fees, and you'll hear a lot of the conversation during the presentation today about cost recovery levels. So typically what we start with is understanding how many staff hours that it takes to provide a service and the cost associated with that. And that number determines 100% cost recovery for that service. Where the fees are set may be at 100% or they may be less. And we'll talk a bit about what subsidies look like. In 2004, the City Council approved financial strategies that focus development related fees on 100% cost recovery, and the study you'll see today will start with 100% cost recovery across the board. It's been some time since we did a massive overhaul of our fees. The most recent study was completed in 2013 with an adoption in 2014. We also did some minor adjustments in 2017, which addressed a handful of fees. Also important to note at this point, the current analysis is based on fiscal year 2022 and 2023 budgeted numbers and fees charged at the beginning of the study. It typically takes uh six months to a year to prepare these studies, and a lot of the information you'll see today is based on when that exercise started. Before we we dive into the specifics of the study, I think it's really important to discuss the relationship between revenue, expenditures, and permits in planning and economic development. As I mentioned, there are quite a few departments that support it. The vast majority of the hours and development services come out of planning and academic development. The chart you see before you now really shows our permit totals. Those are the vertical bars, and it breaks it down between building engineering and planning. Building is the vast majority of our permitting totals. It shows the expenditures in red, and the expenditures only focus on development services. So they exclude any cost for economic development and code enforcement. And then shows the relationship with our revenue. And typically, any time you look at development services over a 10-year period, you'll see a general increase, you'll see a plateau, and then you'll see some form of a decrease. And that's just how development cycles work. We've seen some interesting anomalies in Santa Rosa during this time frame. In 2015 and 16, we're still coming back from the recession of 2009.