OAKLAND, CA – Today, Tuesday, November 12th in the Community and Economic Development Committee (CED) the hearing called for by Oakland Council President Kaplan on impact fees will be heard as an informational report in Hearing Room 1 at Oakland City Hall beginning at 1:30PM. (Link to Agenda)
The number of homeless individuals in Alameda County has increased 43% in the last two years. This is in large part driven by our housing crisis. The main solution to homelessness is to provide affordable housing.
In 2016, our Oakland City Council took a step to address the lack of affordable housing by implementing an “impact” fee for new market rate development to pay its fair share toward funding the City of Oakland’s affordable housing needs. The impact fee money was to be one tool to combat displacement but to date the funding is not being mobilized – and possibly not being properly accounted – in a timely way to provide affordable housing.
Kaplan has submitted a supplemental report after asking local developers to voluntarily disclose their projects and impact fees paid. This supplemental report represents a fraction of the projects that should have paid impact fees to the City yet represents potentially significant additional funds beyond those previously identified. Councilmember Kaplan believes there are significant amounts of impact fee revenues that should be made available for affordable housing development which have not yet been accounted for, though Council President Kaplan has been asking for an accounting of these fees since the budget process in early May.