The board will hold a public hearing at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 9, at the headquarters station, 445 N. Main St.
The documents are available on the district’s website and at the headquarters station during business hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The Jan. 9 hearing will allow community members to provide input on the mitigation fee study, completed by Ridgeline Municipal Strategies. The firm’s overview presentation is published below.
The mitigation fee, also known as the development impact fee, is a one-time fee imposed on new development as a condition of approval. It’s meant to pay for public facilities needed to serve new development.
The report explains that mitigation fees can be used to expand the district’s facilities to serve new development, but they cannot be used for maintenance, deficiencies or operations.
The mitigation fee ordinance was adopted in September 1992 in Lake County and in April 2005 in the city of Lakeport.
The report said there have been no significant updates to the fee program in 31 years, other than the city of Lakeport increasing the fee to match the Lake County amount in 2007. The program set the fee ceiling of $1 per square foot but did not include an inflation adjustment provision.
Since the program was implemented, the district has added emergency medical services, and construction costs went from $64 to $70 per square foot to more than $600 per square foot. At the same time, class A engine/pumper trucks have grown in cost from $200,000 to $350,000 to $700,000, and water tenders have risen from between $110,000 to $125,000 to between $400,000 and $550,000, the report said.
The report said the fire mitigation fee methodology is based on future development’s share of existing and future public facility costs.
There are currently 10.8 million square feet of development within the district. Within the next 18 years, it’s projected that there will be 1.1 million square feet of new development.
They’re proposing a total fee of $2 per square foot for residential development and $2.45 per square foot for commercial development.
The new fee is expected to raise revenue of $2.3 million over 18 years.
During that time frame, there will be planned facilities costs of $24.7 million, with $480,000 in available mitigation fee funds and $22 million needed from other sources, according to the report.
In related news, in September, the board voted to raise the Measure M parcel tax rate.
Measure M, passed by voters in 2019, had a beginning rate per benefit unit of $6.14. The ordinance authorizing the measure allowed the board to approve an annual rate increase of up to 3%, based on the San Francisco Consumer Price Index.
The board voted to raise the tax to $6.65, splitting the difference between the minimum increase that would have made the new rate $6.50 and the maximum allowable increase that would have changed the rate to $6.81.
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Lakeport FPD Fire Mitigati by LakeCoNews on Scribd