Developers asked to help prevent school overcrowding plan to
show up at a crucial meeting on the topic with good intentions and
empty hands.
Gilroy – Developers asked to help prevent school overcrowding plan to show up at a crucial meeting on the topic with good intentions and empty hands.
Two months ago, city council scuttled talk of a building moratorium to give developers a chance to devise their own plan to help the cash-strapped Gilroy Unified School District meet demands for new facilities. Land donations and cash payments beyond state-capped development fees were offered as ideas to drive the process forward.
“I’m hearing through the grapevine that there might be a little bit of foot-dragging on this issue and it’s something we cannot afford to hold back on,” said GUSD Trustee Jaime Rosso. “If we can’t come up with a voluntary solution, then (developers) are going to leave us no choice but to come back to the city and ask that there be some kind of action to halt or slowing of development.”
Rosso will likely be disappointed when developers arrive at a Monday meeting.
“We’re not actively doing anything at this point,” said Tony Sudol, a former councilman who assumed the role of pointman for the development community.
“The best thing that could happen is that the city, school district and the developers get together and work something out,” Sudol added. “It’s a tripod. You need to have all the legs or it will fall.”
Good intentions may not pass muster Monday afternoon. School district officials have spent months warning of a widening gap between the need for new facilities and their ability to pay for them. The district has a $12.86 million budget deficit and is prevented by state law from aggressively raising fees on new development.
Other Bay Area cities facing similar school crunches have strong-armed developers with threats of building moratoriums, GUSD officials pointed out earlier this year. State law prevents school districts from significantly increasing development fees, and GUSD officials urged council to use its power over the city’s building industry to extract concessions from developers.
Council members opted instead to let developers devise their own plan in a throwback to a success story from the ’90s, when developers rallied around a cash-strapped City Hall to help finance major infrastructure upgrades in the northwest quadrant.
“If they come back with a low-ball offer (this time), that’s not acceptable,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said. “We’ve got to find a way to take care of this problem … We’re certainly not going to build if we can’t provide the schools to serve these homes.”
Developer Sal Akhter doubts council will follow through on moratorium threats. After all, the city relies heavily on property taxes and development fees to “keep the machinery going,” he said.
“I think the mayor is pushing back a little bit, using a carrot and a stick,” Akhter said. “But I think we all understand the importance of the school district to the city.”
