Free stuff is nice. Who doesn't want free stuff? But as the old saying goes, "there's no such thing as a free lunch."
If your next door neighbors wanted to build a 25 story building in their backyard, and offered you $5000 to support their application to the City for a General Plan Amendment to increase the allowable height from 28 feet to 2800 feet would you accept the money? Probably not. It would be a terrible project for a neighborhood and the $5000 wouldn't nearly offset the loss in value of your property. That's how the horribly misnamed "Community Benefits" system works, "let us build something really awful and we'll give you some money or some other one-time gift."
Current City policy for a property
owner that would like a General Plan Amendment (GPA) encourages the
property owner to offer “Community Benefits” to the City in exchange
for the City Council approving the GPA which would allow the property
owner greater height, higher density, shorter setbacks, commercial
office allocation, etc.. Developers have to compete with each other to
offer the most community benefits in exchange for being allowed to
violate the City's General Plan with a General Plan Amendment.
This is extremely bad public policy. The whole idea of "if you let us
ignore your General Plan, and let us build a really bad project that
everyone hates, in exchange we'll give you some one-time money for a
capital improvement” is the totally wrong way to do planning.
"Community Benefits" is why Vallco is such a mess now; a previous City
Council approved a very bad project after the property owner promised
some money for a new City Hall and the shell of a performing arts
center. This "free stuff" would have been nice, one-time, things to
have but in return we would have ended up with a very bad project for
many many decades.
The two developer-controlled City Council Candidates, Hung Wei &
J.R. Fruen support the flawed "Community Benefits" philosophy. Mayor
Steven Scharf and Planning Commissioner Kitty Moore oppose this
philosophy because they have the knowledge and experience to
understand how it leads to bad projects.
Current City policy for property
owners that would like a General Plan Amendment (GPA) encourages the
property owner to offer “Community Benefits” to the City in exchange
for the City Council approving the GPA which would allow the property
owner greater height, higher density, lower setbacks, commercial
office allocation, etc.. Developers have to compete with each other to
offer the most community benefits in exchange for being allowed to
violate the City's General Plan with a General Plan Amendment.
This is extremely bad public policy. The whole idea of "if you ignore
your General Plan, and let us build a really bad project that everyone
hates, in exchange we'll give you some one-time money for a capital
improvement” is the totally wrong way to do planning. "Community
Benefits" is why Vallco is such a mess now; a previous City Council
approved a very bad project after the property owner promised some
money for a new City Hall and the shell of a performing arts center.
Those would have been nice, one-time, things to have but in return we
would have ended up with a very bad project for many many decades. I
recall former Cupertino Mayor Orrin Mahoney stating why he didn't like
the Tier 2 project, and one thing he said was "if we need a new City
Hall then we need to pay for it ourselves."
The City Council's 4-1 rejection of the “Community Benefits”
philosophy is exactly why we ended up with a relatively good project
with Westport (The Oaks). The original project proposals were
terrible, and would have required General Plan Amendments, but they
included some "Community Benefits," specifically a “transit center”
(even though there is no mass transit on the 85 corridor, and none
planned). Twice, the property owner came to the City Council seeking
General Plan Amendments that would let them build a taller, denser
project, with a large amount of commercial office space. Twice the
City Council turned them down. The property owner then tried to
collect signatures to put a GPA on the ballot but was unable to
collect enough signatures from voters.
A critical point to remember is
that often a developer’s goals are completely different than the goals
of the City. As leaders of the city, we strive to make our city safer,
our families healthier, our schools better, and our environment
cleaner. Those goals are often fundamentally at odds with the goals of
those entities seeking to profit financially from Cupertino, whether
it's the cement plant, a commercial property owner, or a developer. As
such, the City is sometimes in necessarily adversarial relationships
with property owners. As nice as it would be for everyone to get
together in a circle and sing Kumbaya, a strategy advocated by two
2020 City Council candidates, when we have completely different
objectives that is often not practical. We do try to work with
cooperative property owners but they must be willing to negotiate, and
sometimes they are not. We got good projects with the hotel at
Cupertino Village and the hotel that will replace the Goodyear Tire
store on De Anza and Homestead; those are good projects and there was
very little opposition to either one being granted a General Plan
Amendment. Recently, one current Council Member stated that he wished
that developers would work with the City in order to create projects
that every resident liked; I wish that too, and it often happens, but
not always. We're still trying with the Vallco project, and it's not
too late for the City and the property owner to come together and
create a better project; the ball is in the court of the property
owner.
Instead of demanding inducements from property owners, what we can do
instead is to provide a fair and level playing field. We need to set
our impact fees at appropriate levels that allow the City to
break-even on the additional infrastructure costs that these projects
bring; Sacramento needs to do the same when it comes to school impact
fees which currently have artificially low limits that are far lower
than the costs that school districts incur. We should not be trying to
extract money, or other gifts, from developers in exchange for
approval of projects that are so awful that they would never be
approved otherwise.
What did Apple co-founder Steve Jobs say about "Community Benefits" when a previous City Council member tried to extract things from Apple in exchange for approval of the Apple Park Campus?
Steve Jobs was spot on when he
replied, on June 7, 2011, after a City Council Member asked for free
Wi-Fi and other freebies from Apple, "I'm a simpleton, I've always had
this view that we pay taxes and the City should do those things." See:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gtuz5OmOh_M&feature=youtu.be&t=806.
So let's collect fair and appropriate taxes and fees and then use that
money to pay for the City's needs.
Steven
Scharf for Cupertino City Council 2020 FPPC ID #1388099