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Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club <sierraclub8@gmail .com >Monday, August 06, 2012 6 :49 PMCouncil_ALLcomment on the Draft Economic Development Strategic Plan for 8/7 meetin g
AGENDA
CORRESPONDENC E
Santa Lucia ChaptDeate fi Item#62-S I E RCLU
August 6, 201 2
TO : SLO City Counci l
FROM : Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Clu b
Following are our comments on the Draft Economic Development Strategic Plan (EDSP).
The use in the staff report of the politically loaded term "job creators," which was devised by one of the political partie s
seeking advantage in the current presidential election, does not seem appropriate in a staff report . We would hope t oOeit replaced by the word "companies" or "businesses" going forward .
The Plan seems to take it as an article of faith that reducing developer impact fees will create head of household jobs ,without supporting evidence for that claim . The Council should request a range of studies on this subject -- if such exist -before accepting this premise .
We would apply the same criticism to the alleged need for "permit streamlining," which also needs examination alon g
the lines of perception vs .reality. On its first page, the staff report states that said streamlining would "optimize th e
City's development review process," and that "`based on community input, this would also include a review of Cit yenvironmental review procedures ." On Page 43 of the EDSP we learn that "community input" and "the publi c
engagement process" consisted primarily of interviews with 31 individuals, in search of "an insider perspective" from th ebusiness community .
The perception represented by this input presents a notable contrast with the reality that appears as a finding at th ebottom of page 37 in Appendix A . In comparison to other regional governments, "the City appears to process permit s
efficiently with some of the shortest processing times ."
The idea promoted by the Plan that the City should abandon its nearly decade-long policy of requiring developers to pa y
their fair share of the costs of development and infrastructure and the City be required to subsidize those costs shoul d
be considered in light of how successful the current policy has been .
In the comparison of development fees charged by the City to those charged by the County, Paso Robles, Santa Barbar a
and Davis in Appendix A, the background report mentions on page 35 that "only the city of San Luis Obispo and th e
unty of San Luis Obispo impose fees related to affordable housing on commercial development," without elaboration .
his statistic is evidently considered to be so important it is re-stated, in a boldface call-out, on page 37 .) If by i t
inclusion and emphasis, the authors mean to suggest that affordable housing fees should be eliminated and that instea d
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ubject :
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inclusionary affordable housing shall bade a mandatory requirement as a perce of all future development, wit h
no option for in lieu fees, we would consider that a worthwhile exchange . We urge t e Council to give staff direction t o
that effect .
We commend to the Council's attention the caveat that concludes the comparison in this section : "The level of services •
and quality of life desired by the City also should be factored in --- not only because they are highly valued by th e
community,but also because they help to fuel job growth ."
We would extend this caveat to cover the Plan's function as an argument for the reduction of impact fees and requirin g
the city and taxpayers to make up the difference, the "streamlining" of the environmental review process, the lowerin g
of standards for construction of infrastructure, and the incentivizing of development . The national landscape is littere d
with municipalities that sought to compete with each other by incentivizing development with "streamlined" checkbo x
permitting,tax holidays, slashed development fees,and an increase in the burden of the cost of developmen t
infrastructure placed on their general funds and their residents . We do not recommend that San Luis Obispo set off
down that road .
Instead of taking to heart the draft Plan's evident proposition that the City needs to become more like Santa Barbara ,
Paso Robles, or Davis, we suggest that consideration be given to the possibility that the City's current impact fees an d
environmental review process may have more than a little to do with its aforementioned level of services and th e
maintenance of a quality of life currently ranked the highest in the nation .
Thank you for the opportunity to comment ,
Andrew Christie, Directo r
anta Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Clu b
P .O . Box 1575 5
San Luis Obispo,CA 93406
805-543-8717
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