(a) The California Mitigation Fee Act, Section 66000 et seq. of the Government Code, establishes a process that allows public agencies to implement a fee program for new development to address government facility needs and associated costs directly related to the population growth associated with development.
(b) County facility needs grow commensurate with the growth in population. New residents and employees are likely to require as much service as the County provides to existing residents and employees. Increased demand on services increases space needs.
(c) All or a portion of the costs associated with facilities needs may be recovered through the establishment, increase, or imposition of development fees.
(d) The California Mitigation Fee Act requires that all public agencies satisfy certain requirements when establishing, increasing, or imposing a fee as a condition of approval for a development project.
(e) This chapter properly limits use of all fees collected to public facilities and improvements attributable to new development, and further limits use of fees to specific categories of facilities and improvements until and unless subsequent evidence justifies reallocation.
(f) Fees collected under this chapter will fund facilities for County-wide services. Development within incorporated cities will cause more than ninety (90%) percent of the demand for new facilities in the identified categories. Substantially greater development outside the existing cities would cause unacceptable loss of productive agricultural land.
(g) The cities do not and cannot provide the identified facilities and the related services, while the County is required to do so.
(h) Development within the cities should pay a fair share toward the new facilities which it requires. Otherwise, the costs of those facilities will be disproportionately and unfairly borne by other County taxpayers, or will unfairly reduce the level of service provided to present County residents.
(i) In order to recover its costs resulting from development within cities, the County must exercise authority over that development, solely to the extent of requiring payment of a fee.
(j) Residential projects and commercial improvements bring additional residents and employees into the County. Those residents and employees require social, health, probation, traffic, parks and open space, sheriff, criminal justice, County administrative services, and libraries. The purpose of the fees required by this chapter is to pay for costs of additional facilities used to provide Countywide public protection, health and human services, libraries, sheriff’s patrol and investigation services, traffic, parks and open space, County administration, information technology, planning, and public works, and facility planning. The fees received pursuant to this chapter are to be used to assess the need for, plan, design, construct, develop, lease and acquire facilities for such services.
(§ 1, Ord. 1119, eff. May 30, 1991, as amended by § 2, Ord. 1533, eff. February 11, 2021)