Hi Mark,

Thanks for this article. How are city fees calculated? Are they a percentage of the unit value, or are they a set amount per unit?

Why is anyone trying to build residential housing in North Bayshore anyways? We have areas where we could increase density without burdening an entire new area. The areas between Shoreline and San Antonio Road would be ideal for five story apartments and they would have commercial areas within walking distance.

If it needs to be done, I hope the city council has the fortitude to ensure proper funding for schools. Don’t build at any cost and certainly do not stick the costs to anyone but the developers themselves.

Nora, the way school fees are calculated is that first the school district has to establish the cost of accommodating the new students projected to come from the new housing. Then this cost is allocated among the new homes on a cost per square foot basis. There is a statutory cap on this amount. So the school fees for each housing unit are the projected cost per square foot (up to the statutory maximum) multiplied by the number of square feet for that unit.

Kathy, thanks for the explanation. But if school fees are only based on the cost of educating students and not on property value, why would the fees increase over time? My naive assumption is that the cost of educating a student stays constant except for inflation. Is that completely wrong?

Joseph, I’m not sure I understand your question. I thought Nora was asking about developer fees, which are paid to the school district one time. What are you asking about?

And now that I reread Nora’s comment, I don’t even think I answered her question. She asked about city fees.

I saw a comment from "Cuesta" area suggesting between Shoreline and San Antonio for 5 story buildings... Why not build a few 5 story buildings south of ECR near Cuesta Park right along the community shuttle route? Larger lots, take out 6 houses and put in 60 condos.

@side1, this isn’t about picking on an area without reason or a scenario where I don’t want apartments in Cuesta. Anyone that drives down Grant Road during the day might disagree though.

The area between Shoreline and San Antonio, boxed in the sides by Central and El Camino already hold a great number of apartments. I’m not hardened to these boundaries, but by replacing 2-3 story structures with 5 story structures, we’d double density and have already made commercial areas in walking distance for all tenants. We wouldn’t need to create a new neighborhood and encourage the senseless sprawl which would worsen traffic everywhere. And if the demand exists, run a VTA line straight from Google to the center of this dense area. Besides, I’m sure our local businesses would appreciate more nearby demand.

I agree with side1, plus we should also plan to redevelop old Mtn View. It’s next to downtown, near Caltrain. Plus Moffet/Castro will no longer connect go through. Bored M has seen no real traffic, try Middlefield and Shoreline every day. Specially when there are accidents on 101 and every traffic report sends cars to use Middlefield. Plus don’t start me on concert nights. And all that is in addition to the normal commute traffic and Google’s new headquarter isn’t even finished.

The city does NOT charge school fees. The various school districts charge impact fees that are capped by state law. I believe this is currently about $3.50 per square foot. So for a 1000 ft apartment, it would only be $3500, which is much less than what is mentioned in the article. So best I can figure, the city is charging a lot for park land per unit. I thought this was offset by a land donation for park use. It seems like the the city building 200 affordable apartments would not "inherit" much of a fee to the school district just $700,000. But the city would also inherit its own fees for parkland for such a development. This might make sense since there is a lot of parkland in the general area. There's the regional park and there is the Charleston Park. The Charleston park is really lightly used.

Kathy, thanks for your explanation! But I think part of the confusion is because this article conflates developer fees from the city and those from the schools. It would be nice to hear from the journalist about that. (Mark Noack, are you listening?) The article says:

"due to skyrocketing land values, city fees for parks and schools have been rising precipitously"

And that makes me wonder how they are calculated. Perhaps when the school district is figuring out the cost of accommodating new students they take into account the cost of land for a new school?

Nora, if a school district needs to buy land, that would be included in the cost of accommodating new students. But that cost is highly likely to exceed the statutory cap, so is usually irrelevant to school fees.

A bit of additional information in response to Nora's question: Mixup and Kathy S. are correct that school fees are imposed by the school districts based on habitable square footage, and that the State sets a cap on the amount that districts can charge (currently $3.79 per square foot for Level 1 fees). However, the City of Mountain View is proposing to require developers to pay an additional fee to the districts. Putting aside the issue of whether the City can legally impose a fee in excess of the State-imposed cap, the City is currently estimating that the fee would be in the range of $30,000 - $40,000 per unit --- about 10 times what the State allows. And yes, the amount of the fee is tied to land values, so as the land values have gone up, so have the fees.

Similarly, the City park fee is directly tied to land value. In many parts of the City, prices for multifamily residential land are at or above $10 million per acre, which means that the park fee for an apartment project would be $60,000 per unit ($10 million per acre x 0.006 acres per unit, according to the City's formula). For a 400-unit apartment project, the park fee would be $24,000,000 --- which, needless to say, is a sizable chunk of change.

(Note: The park fee is based on value of the land that is proposed for development, not the value of the land which the City would potentially buy for a park, which tends to skew the fee upwards, since the value of prime residential acreage is much higher than the value of potential parkland.)

California Ave, do you 7nder what authority the City is imposing this fee? This seems to me to be an invitation to litigation.

Sorry, not “7under” but “know under”

I guess the City can ignore the safety of the land for housing and leave it to developers and buyers to BEWARE.

Hi @Nora,

I think @California Ave did an excellent job summing up the school and park fees.

In regard to schools, I would only add that the North Bayshore Precise Plan gives general direction for developers and school officials to negotiate on fees, land donations or transferring development rights to help build schools. Any new housing development is require to draft a local school strategy in partnership with the school districts. Right now, developers are saying they're in the dark as to how much they'll have to pay in school fees.

@Mark Noack and others, CORRECT - the school fees that are capped are limited by the state, Per Square Ft, and do not in any way match the cost to build a school, or additional classrooms, in this area.

SUNSET ON SHORELINE. The Shoreline special district (1969) is one of the extremely few remaining "quasi-RDA" (ReDevelopment Authority) tax diverting districts in the state. In the Tax year 2018-18 the official county report is that, just from the elementary district $9,447,982.12 was diverted, and from the MV-LA high school district $6,052,354.85 was diverted. pg. H-9
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As I have questioned before, during for instance the 2008 City Council LWV Council Candidate Forum, "hardball"
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or the 2010 MV-LA facilities bond campaign, "should Google, Microsoft and the Shoreline District businesses get out of regular school taxes (forever)?"
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? Council people/candidates - why continue DIVERTING $16 million per year from the schools? The schools can/if they choose/ use this general property tax money in a COP (public income mortgage) finance method to Build New School Facilities. This is not rare - MVWSD is using a COP and public yearly income to build a 450 student permanent neighborhood school facility in Whisman/Slater neighborhood. No "tricky legal agreements" needed!

Council candidates: please expect the "hardball question" to be submitted by me again at this year's LWV Council Candidate Forum. Half the money - is not enough.

COP notwithstanding, MVWSD is tying up over 12 acres of school land and buildings so as to get rental income. I don't think they get $16 Million per year from that. Still, they wouldn't need to buy new land if they gave up this rental income. It's very near to the area, though across 101. If there are a lot of kids in the new housing, they could run bus service to pick them up and take them home. It's Whisman School on Easy Street that belongs to MVWSD, as does MOST of the park land the city uses adjacent to the school site.