Council Takes Steps to Fund Child Care, Public Art

By Gene Williams
Staff Writer

April 12 -- All large developments built in Santa Monica will be taxed to fund child care and public art projects under a plan that is moving forward at City Hall.

After several years of discussion and study, the City Council Tuesday night directed staff to go to work on an ordinance that could increase building fees as much as $5.27 per square foot and will likely tax construction costs an additional one percent.

The heftiest chunk of the developer's fees would go for child care facilities for those who live and work in the city. The fees would be three to five times higher than those in other cities with similar programs.

While most of the council seemed in favor of the specifics of the proposal, Mayor Bob Holbrook and Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Shriver raised concerns.

Holbrook took exception to the child care funding formula, which he said was “flat out too high” and would send good projects elsewhere.

“I have great concern about that,” Holbrook. “I want to see if there is any discussion about adjusting this fee, otherwise I won’t support it.”

Under a formula used by City consultants that connects development with child care facilities costs, new commercial buildings over 7,500 square feet would pay $5.27 per square foot of office space, $3.77 per square foot of retail space, and $2.61 per square foot of hotel space. New residences will likely pay a flat fee of $111 per unit.

Also under staff’s recommendations, for every $100,000 spent on commercial buildings over 7,500 square feet, developers would have to spend at least $2,000 on on-site art, or pay $1,000 in in-lieu fees to the City’s art coffers.

“We try to be on the cutting edge of everything,” Holbrook said about the plan to fund child care. “But we don’t want to cut a swath through people along the way.

“Often these stores approach 50,000 square feet,” Holbrook said. “What would that cost Santa Monica Place to redevelop? In the millions I think.”

However Council member Ken Genser, in his first council appearance since surgery more than a month ago, defended staff’s numbers.

“Either we are serious about meeting the needs of the children of Santa Monica or we’re not,” Genser said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Genser called the proposal “a very modest tax” for the “value that’s been added” to property in the city, and said the fees would affect “land owners” more than developers.

“Developers don’t really pay this fee unless they’ve owned the property for a long time,” Genser said. “In effect, this is a tax on the land owners.”

In discussion of the plan to fund the arts, Council member Bobby Shriver questioned the purpose of the proposed in-lieu fees.

Under the staff’s plan, developers would either spend two percent of their building costs for on-site art that would be subject to City review, or they could opt to pay a one-percent in-lieu fee.

Shriver asked if the purpose of the plan was to grow the City’s art coffers while discouraging privately commissioned art.

“What we’re going to get is a lot of in lieu money,” Shriver said. “We’re not going to get is a lot of on-site art.”

Staff replied that the in-lieu fees would be an option for developers who are only marginally interested in the arts and would be likely to include only marginally worthwhile art in their projects.

Although the City has linked support for child care and the arts to at least a half dozen development agreements in the last 25 years, starting with the Colorado Place development, Tuesday’s council move is a significant step in establishing uniform fees and requirements for all future development.

During the public comment Tuesday, the council heard from some dozen supporters of the plan, most of them members of the City’s Art Commission and Child Care Task Force. No one spoke against the plan.

Council member Richard Bloom said that there has been little opposition throughout the entire process.

“I haven’t heard of a single developer against this,” Bloom said, “not that that means there aren’t any.

“This has been kicking around for a long, long time,” Bloom said, “so if they’re not aware of this, they’re not paying attention.”