Excellent overview of how Rancho Cordova has managed the separation transition from the County over the past 39 months, and one very good development has been the park renovation fee ($1,500 on each new home) to help maintain the natural surroundings that lend so much to the new city’s ambiance.
An excerpt.
Commentary: As city grows, development must pay for more services
By David M. Sander - Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, November 2, 2006
In this era of reality TV and extreme makeovers, it's not surprising that citizens expect improvements to their quality of life to be swift and economically uplifting.
As a Rancho Cordova City Council member, that is what I expect as well.
Unlike TV shows, we can't edit the footage to create the storyline. But some people sure try -- as demonstrated recently by issues raised about the progress made in Rancho Cordova since it became a city.
During the 39 months since incorporation, the council has spent much if its time on cleaning out the "inbox" of items left to us by Sacramento County.
Many of these items had the potential of pushing Rancho Cordova in a direction exactly the opposite of where our residents want the city to go. To avoid this, the city had to retrench and re- direct some things that were already under way.
For example, the City Council had barely been sworn in when we were faced with applications for 20,000-plus new homes, plus their associated streets, parks, commercial centers and public facilities. The good news is that we were quick studies and immediately saw that the financing plan for these projects was vastly insufficient.
To build the basic level of park amenities in the first phase of the Anatolia project, the county's fee collection plan had an $11 million shortfall that could mean cuts to services in established Rancho Cordova to make up the gap. That was unacceptable. That $11 million gap had to be filled, and we did so by bringing the developers back to the negotiating table.
This was the first example of a guiding principle that we've applied to any project coming before the council. All new development has to pay for itself. And I go one step further: If we are to have new growth in Rancho Cordova, then it should be of benefit to existing residents; otherwise, why would they support it?
That's exactly why we instituted our park renovation fee. This fee ($1,500 per house) is charged to developers whose proceeds will be spent in existing Rancho Cordova. We expect this fee to raise some $45 million to be spent on fixing up existing parks in Rancho Cordova.
That's money that could not have been raised without new growth, and so it is a real benefit of growth for our existing community. We are also following this principle in our housing and road fees -- finding resources through growth to improve our existing community -- because, frankly, it's of benefit to even new residents to see our existing community thrive.
