Letter from former Petaluma City Councilmember David Keller proposing a Northwest Petaluma Annexation Specific Plan and Financing proposal.
FROM: David Keller
DATE: Feb. 20, 2003
TO: City Councilmembers and City Manager Bierman:RE: Coordinating and funding public improvements at Magnolia Park and other annexations.
Dear Councilmembers and Mr. Bierman:
In working through the issues for each of the proposed new developments in NW Petaluma: Magnolia and Jesse Lane, Paula Lane, Rockridge, Johnson, and the Outlet Mall, several important themes are developing.
None of these projects are considering impacts cumulatively as they develop in the UGB lands outside the current city limits. The developers all believe they have legal rights for annexation, now that the lands are in the UGB, and they want in under their terms at minimum cost to them. While that is fair, another part of the planning and fiscal equation must be addressed.
Currently there is no coordinated plan or financing for the City to annex any of the some 300+ acres within the UGB but outside the current city limits northwest of the City, particularly north of Western Avenue around towards Stony Point Rd.
With any annexations, the city faces the imperative of bringing county streets up to city standards (paving, curbs and gutters, width, slopes, grading, roadbed and base, lighting, and signage), providing improved storm water drainage without negatively impacting downstream neighbors or habitat, providing city services (fire, ambulance, water, sewer), water pressure and local storage tanks and hydrants for fire service or water pressure, electrical/phone/cable upgrades, parks and play fields, traffic circulation, continuous sidewalks, pedestrian and bike paths, schools, zoning, housing density targets, low income housing targets, reduced density towards the urban edge, local/neighborhood serving retail/office opportunities, transit service, etc. The county hasn't provided (and will not provide) this level of development standards and implementation, and the current infrastructure there is an uncoordinated patchwork of missing pieces.
Trying to do this parcel-by-parcel will not get the city the integrated infrastructure it needs, leaving an unmanageable and extremely expensive series of gaps. Under the current lack of planning and financing, the City fronts the money on its own to complete the picture where it can, waiting for developments to come along to buy into the City's infrastructure costs. Or, it leaves major gaps in its infrastructure, cobbled together with piecemeal upgrades and deficient holes in between.
This will take money - many millions of dollars, which the city doesn't have. The land owners and developers need to pay for it in a coordinated fashion, under control of the city, not parcel by parcel, project by project. It is impossible to bring the area within the UGB up to standards the way this is being done now.
The current argument about paying for a park at Magnolia is just the tip of the iceberg: if the city had a coordinated plan and the funding vehicle to pay for it, none of the arguments about not having money or designated park locations would hold water. With advance planning and financing, the City would have selected park locations and sizes and have the funding vehicle to implement it. It should not take waiting hat in hand for money to appear from some magical outside source, or the impossible task of accumulating enough funds to purchase parks under our existing development fees.
Indeed, it is the city's prerogative and obligation to its existing residents and taxpayers to make sure that the provision of these services is coordinated. Further, the incremental services required through the future annexations must be paid for by the recipients of these new services, not the existing taxpayers and ratepayers as a subsidy to new development.
We can't now afford to pay for repairs to our own existing streets, no less pay for upgrading sub-standard streets annexed parcel by parcel, one side of a street at a time. As the General Plan says, "new development shall pay for itself."
The only route to a coordinated, comprehensive planning for this, and the money to pay for it, is a Northwest Petaluma Annexation Specific Plan, and corresponding Special Benefit Assessment District. It would be used for amending the General Plan, but would be of specific enough detail to cover all these issues of infrastructure requirements (which the General Plan will not do with great specificity). Benefit Assessment Engineering would set the baseline for future city expenses to cover the upgrades, and would ensure that the annexation comes with full funding apportioned equitably to all the new property owners who enter the city's jurisdiction.
And it must come with this funding mechanism: a special benefit assessment district, encompassing the whole area proposed for annexation, and voted upon by all the affected property owners. This district would be charged for the privilege of coming into the City's jurisdiction and coming up to city standards (and specific and general plan requirements). The property owners and/or their developers would have to pay for the development of the specific plan (as has been the case with other plans like this), betting that if they do a good enough job, the voters will approve the plan, the funding, and set the basis on which their projects could receive approvals.
Environmental review on a programmatic basis would eliminate the piecemealing of parcel-by-parcel, project-by-project annexations. Such piecemealing of the overall annexation not only leads to incomplete upgrades and patchwork systems, and extra city expenses to cover shortfalls, but also the inevitable legal inadequacy of piecemealing a larger project, namely expansion of city services to cover annexation of hundreds of acres, and the cumulative impacts such annexations incur.
Voting for the assessment district and the property taxes it would encumber is done by property ownership, and the assessed amount is based on potential development rights on each parcel to be taxed, if any. Therefore, the vote is weighted by acreage, and the targeted property owners have the right to vote the plan in or not. (non-owner residents or tenants do not get to vote on this: that's the law). If the whole plan does not win at the ballot, the plan is dead.
This is how the city dealt with the Sunnyslope Annexation Specific Plan in 1987-90 (prompted by Condiotti's proposal for the Westridge Knolls subdivision), as well as the proposed (but never completed) South Petaluma Blvd Annexation Specific Plan (the property owners were 3 years into the planning, then bailed out - they didn't want to pay anymore for their right to be annexed with city services - as a result, all development in that area is on hold), and of course, the Corona-Ely Annexation Specific Plan (which laid out the blueprints and funding mechanisms for the entire NE Petaluma growth).
[NOTE: For comparisons and examples, refer to the reports for the Sunnyslope Annexation Specific Plan and its CEQA documentation and Benefit Assessment Plan. Even then-City Manager John Scharer and Planning Director Warren Salmons were willing to tell Condiotti to cool his heels until the plan was complete and annexation and assessments were approved by the surrounding property owners - and this took over 10 years. The City properly refused to accept annexation until a funding mechanism was in place to pay for all the upgrades, since the county refused to do any of it on their own.The resulting Annexation Plan and its funding mechanism were approved by vote, setting the stage for future project developments, including Westridge Knolls and a number of small subdivisions. Streets were paved, sidewalks and bike lanes installed, new sewer, water, gas and electric lines were installed, drainage problems addressed, street lighting put in place, and public open space and a small park were implemented.]
The Outlet Mall expansion runs into these issues as well. There are mixed city and county jurisdictions along Petaluma Blvd North that will be impacted by the proposed project and induced and cumulative future projects, with no analysis or coordination of improvements or financing proposed in this DSEIR. Who will pay for the upgrades?
The Specific Plan and Assessment District are tools that the City staff knows a great deal about, and it must also coordinate with the General Plan re-writing efforts now underway.
The use of a Annexation Specific Plan would give the city a solid, legally defensible and procedurally legal clear way to deal with the annexation attempts, paid for by those who wish to develop in the area.
We don't have to ask for a NW moratorium - all we need to demand is that the developers pay for the specific plan (and its CEQA approvals) that would tell us in a coordinated fashion how they want to become good Petaluma citizens - and pay for what they want. I would include the UGB areas from Bodega Ave. northwest around the city to Stony Pt. Rd. withing such a plan. The General Plan rewrite will not give us enough detail for this area, nor will it provide a funding mechanism to pay for the needed improvements. That's why Specific Plans and Special Benefit Assessment Districts exist under California planning law.
Until this kind of legal requirement is in place, the developers will piecemeal the development of NW Petaluma, and we will have do deal with each project on its own. There will be no coordination among city improvements, and the city will be on the hook for any shortfalls or incompleted plans. In an era of revenue shortfalls, this would amount to a substantial gift of millions of dollars to NW Petaluma developers and landowners, at the expense of all existing Petaluma residents, property owners and taxpayers.
The city should refuse ANY of the annexation proposals, including the Magnolia project, until a coordinated NW Petaluma Annexation Specific Plan is approved and funded! Anything short of this is fiscally irresponsible, and a planning nightmare. Taxpayers will be burdened with millions of dollars of obligations to improve infrastructure that benefits new development. The City treasury will be emptied, and existing infrastructure needs will be shortchanged.
We will be left with much more than old potholes to fill.
Thank you very much for your consideration of this important matter.
David Keller
Petaluma