In another step to increase the number of available child care spaces in San Carlos, the City Council voted unanimously Monday to begin charging nonresidential developers an impact fee that could be sidestepped by opting to build the center on-site.
“All signs I’m seeing are very favorable for this action at this time and I believe the wind is at our back. It’s innovative, it’s contemporary with what many of the other cities are doing,” Councilmember Laura Parmer-Lohan said during Monday’s meeting.
Under the city’s new ordinance, developers behind any new commercial, industrial and office project would be charged a child care impact fee based on square footage. The fees would range from $1.60 to $5 per square foot depending on the type of project.
Greater emphasis will be placed on an alternative option that would allow and encourage developers to build the center on-site that would be overseen by a contracted local operator. Rather than go with staff’s recommendation to only allow the option for developers of projects of at least 50,000 square feet, the council decided to alter the language to more broadly apply to any developer willing to build the center.
A center should be at least 5,000 square feet to be feasible, staff said, leading to questions around whether developers of smaller projects would be willing to sacrifice enough space to hold the site but councilmembers agreed the option should at least be available.
Increasing the number of child care spaces in San Carlos has long been a priority for the council. Last year, it made a number of changes to the municipal code aimed at reducing hurdles to establishing and expanding child care facilities both in homes and larger child care centers.
Requirements for a minor-use permit when building a commercial center were removed, allowing the centers to be built by-right in specific zoning areas. Outdoor play space requirements were removed from city code, instead deferring to state oversight. And permitted hours of operations were also expanded.
“I feel like this is another piece in the holistic effort of addressing the gap that we face in child care slots,” Vice Mayor Adam Rak said about Monday’s actions.
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What fee revenue the city does collect can be used for capital projects like building a new center, acquiring land that will later be used for child care services or for grants and loans to child care operators to upgrade or expand their spaces in a way that would permit them to serve more families.
A nexus study conducted by Economic and Planning Systems Inc. found that for every new nonresidential development, about four new child care slots are needed for every 100 employees brought to the city. Up to 8,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the city within the decade thanks to a life science development boom on the city’s east side.
“A lot of these workers will need child care,” Mayor Sara McDowell said. “This is truly a great benefit for employers and I think that is being realized and also it can be a great benefit to our community.”
Concerned about actually getting the spaces built to serve the immediate need, McDowell and Councilmember John Dugan stressed the importance of proactively spending what money the city receives through the fees.
Ashleigh Kanat, executive vice president in EPS’s Oakland office, also assured the council that the fee structure would be fairly in line with similar fees adopted in neighboring cities, making it unlikely developers would find the extra fee cost-prohibitive, according to the nexus study the company conducted.
“This is truly substantive when you think about our ability to actually get more child care in town so I really like what we’re doing here,” Dugan said. “Child care has been sorely needed in town for years and years.”
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