Council
to Hear Developer Fee Report Before Election |
By Jorge Casuso
October 17 – After more than 10 minutes of heated
debate over the previous meeting minutes, the City Council agreed
to hear a report this month on what happened to a plan that could
have generated millions of dollars in developer fees to fight
traffic.
The report will come one week before voters decide the fate of
Prop T, a measure on the November 4 ballot that would cap most
commercial development in Santa Monica at 75,000 square feet a
year for the next 15 years.
Supporters of the measure -- formerly known as the Residents’ Initiative
to Fight Traffic (RIFT) -- charge that the City failed to collect
some $45 million in developer fees that should have been used
to fight traffic over the past 16 years.
An information item sent from the City Attorney to the council last week indicates
that the City never moved forward with the the plan outlined in
a 1991 ordinance that required developers to pay impact fees to
help mitigate traffic.
“The documents show that MMA (consultants Meyer, Mohaddes Associates)
and City staff worked on the nexus study for about two and a half years,”
wrote City Attorney Marsha Moutrie.
“The scarcity of City documents relating to this project after January
of 1994 may reflect a shift in Planning Department priorities following the
1994 earthquake, increased focus upon transit system options, staffing changes,
or something else; but this is speculation.
“Whatever the cause, the documents do not reflect work after the draft
“fee evaluation” was submitted at the end of 1994,” Moutrie
concluded.
According to the City Attorney’s information item, the last mention of
the issue came up in a December 12, 1996 memorandum from MMA to planners summarizing
the consultant’s “conclusions, commenting on an attached Draft Traffic
Congestion Mitigation Fee Evaluation.”
In the memo, consultants explained “that recent developments in the law
could make it very difficult to impose a fee including a substantial share of
costs related to transit system improvements.”
On Tuesday, some members of the council – which has been
careful not to call the request for information an “investigation”
– questioned why the report had not been placed on the agenda.
“It’s not on the agenda tonight, and it would appear
that it would be on the agenda tonight,” said Council member
Bobby Shriver, who recently announced he supported Prop T. ("Shriver
Supports Prop T," October 10, 2008)
“It was a misunderstanding that it would come back tonight,"
Shriver said. "Plenty of people were exercised about it.”
Mayor Herb Katz said he called the City Manager and asked why the item was
not on the agenda.
City Manager Lamont Ewell said staff would present its report at the October
28 meeting, giving the public notice that the item would be heard.
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