CSD Business Park Annexation
Position paper paper #07-09 of the El Dorado
Hills Citizens Alliance
Initial draft copy, 6/9/2007
Summary
Business activity induces use of local
parks and recreation services by nonresidents. The largest source
of this activity in El Dorado Hills is the Business Park, but the
Business Park is not within the boundaries of the El Dorado Hills
Community Services District.
The El Dorado Hills Community Services District should annex the
Business Park as soon as this action is feasible. This will enable the
District to collect fair-share development impact mitigation fees for
new development in the Business Park if and when provided the County
also repeals a portion of Ordinance 12.30.050. (The Ordinance provision
in question arbitrarily exempts nonresidential development from CSD
development impact fees.)
A secondary priority would be to seek some form of agreement
between the EDH CSD and the Business Park to mitigate parks and
recreation impacts due to development already completed or approved by
the County without parks impact mitigation fees.
Discussion
Nonresidential development imposes well recognized needs for parks and
recreational services. Almost all municipalities the size of El Dorado
Hills in the SACOG region charge park development impact fees for new
nonresedential construction. Fees vary according to local
circumstances: A recent check shows typical settings generally around
$.35 to $.45 per square foot for offices, $.20 to $.25 for retail and
other commercial use, $.15 for industrial use. The highest fees noted
in a recent check were for the City of West Sacramento, whose top rate
was set at $1.61 per square foot of new office space.
The EDH Business Park currently hosts approximately 5,000 employees and
is authorized to grow to 10,045 employees before a General Plan
limitation shuts down further development. This General Plan limitation
will sunset in year 2025, permitting much higher growth in Business
Park employment.
Our CSD needs Business Park property owners to pay their fair share of
development impact mitigation fees. If they fail to do this the induced
and unfunded burden on CSD parks will require some combination of
reduction in service levels for EDH residents and identification of
ways to obtain funding from other sources to pay for facilities and
services used by Business Park employees. The most likely such source
of funding would be the residents of El Dorado Hills. Either
alternative (reduced parks development or increased costs to residents)
would be unfair to residents.