The Executive Summary #04
Impact Fees & Affordable Housing
After engaging in a detailed discourse, the Redding City Council, in a 3-2 vote, sent the agenda item back to City Staff. Interestingly…both freshman council members voted in support of additional staff review.
The debate centered on the Affordable Housing Development Corporation’s request to defer impact fees of $1.5 million for 15 years. Now, this was not a request to forego the fees, but rather an attempt to finance them. This project concerns the development of 97 units of affordable housing for seniors 62 and older whose income falls within certain lower income ranges.
Many issues were not clear to the average citizen in the audience. Since the impact fees are deferred, how will they be paid? Is this lump sum after 15 years…or is this a loan with an amortization schedule? If it’s a loan, what is the interest rate? How is it determined? If the interest rate is below market rate, can that trigger prevailing wage? And…if the fees are deferred, what affect will that have on the need to mitigate certain impacts in less than 15 years? Who is financially responsible to mitigate these impacts?
Since affordable housing in California is at crisis level lows, balancing the needs of our aging community members with the needs of our aging community infrastructure is both delicate and demanding. This type of a decision is potentially precedent setting and may be a shift from traditional Redding City governance.
More research needs to be done. We shall see….