Maintaining a city is hard. It costs money. It requires people. They need public safety services, recreation, parking, walkable spaces, city streets, and more—all of which require infrastructure, maintenance, and money. Lots of it.
So why would a city willingly agree to reduce the fees it charges housing developers to pay for all of that stuff? Because housing is more important than city fees at this point, and the projected property tax revenue is expected to more than make up the difference.
So would it?
According to Santa Maria 1st District Councilmember Carlos Escobedo, the city doesn’t actually know—it just has to take The Vernon Group’s word for it.
“We didn’t talk about the actual costs that this will generate for Santa Maria. The developments don’t pay for itself,” Escobedo said. “We are basically giving away, for a really good discount, prime land in the city of Santa Maria that’s downtown.”
The city is selling Vernon vacant city-owned lots of land at $120,000 per parcel around the mall, and is giving the developer a break on about $2.3 million in fees, as of Sept. 17, in a 4-1 City Council vote with Escobedo dissenting. Vernon is still on the hook for about $8.5 million in developer impact fees and is planning to build more than 600 units of housing, a 150-unit hotel, commercial and retail space, improve walkability, and transform what’s arguably a drab downtown into a more vibrant one.
The prime land that Escobedo is so worried about selling at a discount has been vacant and unused for years, some of it containing empty buildings and parking lots. The city has been trying to figure out a way to reinvigorate the eyesores on Broadway and Main for years.
Which would you rather have?
I know and so did 3rd District City Councilmember Gloria Soto.
“We could have said no to Vernon, but that downtown corridor would have looked and stayed the same for the next 10 to 20 years,” she said. “It would have been shortsighted of the council not to approve the project.”
No shit. Vernon is going to flash around a cool $200 million on four projects aimed at bringing more revenue into the city and, most importantly, more housing.
What about public safety services, the firefighters’ union—which has been fighting for a pay raise over the last several months—asked the council.
“The agreement was approved with the condition that they pay all of the mitigation fees for police and fire,” Assistant City Manager Chuen Wu said. “There is no subsidy for that.”
But, Union President Matthew Chircop said, that money isn’t for salaries, it’s for infrastructure. I guess firefighters were hoping that the city could get The Vernon Group to pony up the dough for those raises. That’d be a first, amirite?
“I made it clear three times that the firefighters are not opposed to this project, we just need to be included in the investment in the community,” he said.
Well, I’d like to be included too! That’s way more residents who will be reading this column, who I’ll be responsible for tweeting about—so maybe it’s time to get out of this birdcage. Think I can get a loft downtown?
The Canary’s always thinking about money. Send some to [email protected].
