Letter to Editor: Vote No Measure H- Dublin School Bond

By: Dan Scannell

I am voting No on Measure H (the Dublin Schools Bond) because:

• The bond continues to require existing residents to heavily subsidize new development instead of having developers pay their fair share: Developers currently only pay about 15% of the costs for their development’s impact on Dublin schools (the bond’s passage won’t increase that), and state bond funding has dried up. The unfunded liability (85%, which equals hundreds of millions of dollars) is being passed onto Dublin residents via bonds (such as Measure H). As a 20+ Dublin resident (12 as an elected official), that is simply not acceptable.
• The approach to burden residents with this debt (rather than have developers pay the majority of the cost) is not sustainable: The average Dublin household debt from previously passed bonds is approximately $30,000. Passage of Measure H will raise the average household debt to around $65,000. But the school district has previously stated that an additional bond or two will be needed to complete the 2nd high school and some of the other projects on the Measure H wish list, so the average debt to every household in Dublin could easily surpass $100,000 in a few years.

I have strongly supported all of the prior Dublin school bonds, and will gladly support a future school bond provided the city council and school district take some concrete actions to have developers pay a larger and more appropriate share of their development’s impact on schools (certainly larger than 15%). Here are a few proposed action items that could make that happen:

1. The DUSD school board should make a finding that some schools in the District are overcrowded (on the eastern side of town) and this is causing many students to be re-directed to schools on the western part of town. This re-direction is well documented and increasing, and the lack of a 2nd high school is exacerbating this cross-town traffic problem. DUSD should identify the significant number of cross-town car trips resulting from re-direction and the expanding high school population. This data is important because the increased traffic was neither identified nor mitigated in the Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) that are the basis for the development's approval.

2. The City Council should designate all unbuilt housing as age restricted housing. "Age-restricted housing" is generally referred to as senior housing but federal regulations allow 20% of residents to be under age 18. In other words, there are children allowed in an age-restricted housing development, just a smaller number than a development without that designation. So by designating housing as age-restricted housing, Dublin immediately and significantly ($$$) reduces the need for new schools, saving millions of dollars in avoided school construction fees.

3. State law SB50 places certain restrictions on what the city council can and cannot due related to school overcrowding issues (e.g., the stated purpose for designating housing as "age restricted" cannot be based on the fact that schools are inadequate). The rationale would need to be that Dublin infrastructure is not sufficient for the ever-increasing cross-town traffic, it was not addressed by EIRs, and age-restricted housing designation is expected to reduce the development's resulting traffic to the initial (now unrealistic) levels identified in the EIRs. Per SB 50 section 65995.7(e) "Nothing shall limit or prohibit the ability of a local agency to mitigate the impacts of land use approvals other than on the need for school facilities."

4. This designation would not violate the developer agreements (btw, I have reviewed all of the developer agreements) as it does not impose a substantial burden, materially delay development, reduce density or square footage, impose additional costs, nor does it deny approval of a given development. Rather, it allows the prior approval of residential units to remain in place w/ the only modification being that there are a smaller number of children in the development.

5. A developer could accept the designation and sell units. Another developer might approach the city and ask what it would take to lift the designation on their development - which basically re-opens developer agreements that are currently closed. Since DUSD has informed the city council last November that the cost from new development is $42 per square ft, and DUSD is charging $6 SF (going up to $11 SF soon), the developer could propose Mello-Roos'ing the property (tax assessment on future residents), providing DUSD additional school impact fees, and/or providing DUSD land/infrastructure, etc. in order to get the designation lifted. If state bond funding ever re-appears, the developer would be paid back a portion of those proceeds.

6. Would a developer sue us over the age restricted designation? Certainly, but I believe that Dublin would easily prevail (and get back all attorney fees) given the well documented and unmitigated cross-town traffic and other adverse affects that the age restricted housing designation would mitigate. Frankly, if our city council isn't willing to invest some funding in legal fees to save Dubliners hundreds of millions of dollars, then let's find some new candidates.

7. Finally, I would suggest (as I did back in November) that the city council hire an outside law firm that specializes in these types of efforts to advise and guide this action item. CC counsel Bakker is a generalist, not a specialist in this area, and I strongly believe we need a specialist, particularly since there is so much Dubliner money on the table. It will be money well spent.

Dan Scannell

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