Cha-Ching: Newark Developer Gets a Deal

In a Newark City Council meeting on February 26th, 2016, the City of Newark did not dispute the peer comparison study performed by the Newark Parks Foundation, which provided plenty of alarm regarding the park fees levied on the Gateway West housing development plan. Gateway West is one of five developers building in the new Transit Oriented District.

Instead of using precious time to perform their own due diligence and acquire an appraisal, something that many cities do annually during real estate booms, the city council quibbled over the Foundation’s land values, even though the city is using an outdated (2013) land value of $346,000 per acre.

Rather than approve the plan contingent on a park fee reassessment, without interruption to the development project, the council voted to lock in the low impact fee. The Foundation’s report was never meant to replace the city’s due diligence; rather, it was a barometer to alert the public and the city council to a loss of millions.

An estimate of the loss of park impact fees can be calculated using the city’s own inputs from the Newark’s 2013 Park Impact Fee Study: the Foundation estimates the loss at 4M, enough to re-turf soccer fields and build a public dog park and a skatepark.

The developer plans to build a small trail sub-segment (3,500 linear feet) to meet up with the city's Bay Trail endpoints at a rough estimate of $122 per linear foot (see Newark-Fremont Bay Trail Alignment Feasibility Study, Appendix C). This is great news! However, if the developer is entitled to a credit of $500,000 for that sub-segment, that's okay, but the credit doesn't come close to making up for the difference under a conservatively priced park impact fee. The developer also plans to build a small (14,000 sqft) HOA dog park in this high density development with no backyards so that the poor dogs have a bathroom, but this amenity isn't entitled to a credit because it isn't a public dedication (it's private).

One great bit of news out of this unfortunate story is that the city agreed to consider Union City’s approach to assessing park impact fees. Union City doesn’t set the park impact fee in advance. The fee is calculated in real-time. This seems like a good idea given that we can't count on our city to revisit its park impact fees annually during a boom to properly price its products.

Equally exciting is the promise of a Bay Trail that connects the Transit Oriented District (TOD) to our beautiful SF Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge. Each of the five TOD developers is tasked will building a trail segment to connect their respective neighborhoods to the Bay Trail. These segments will surely help the developer sell houses, and provide badly needed recreation for those new neighbors. Let's hold the developer to their commitments to build their respective segments. The city wants to build and fund the Bay Trail endpoint(s) to integrate with the segments, providing many bridges/overpasses needed throughout town.

A Bay Trail would be a wonderful addition to our parklands, especially for TOD residents and residents in some parts of Old Town; however, for much of Newark, the Bay Trail is a bike lane on existing roads (Mowry, Cherry, Central, etc). Area 3/4 residents might not be so lucky on the Newark side, but might have a great experience in the future if Newark can convince Fremont to add its segments heading south. Nonetheless, if we can add a park entrance with parking in and around Plummer Creek (not too far from Ash Street Park), bypassing the road experience, there's an opportunity to attract users from other Newark neighborhoods. Even if most residents avoid the road experience, the road improvements can improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, though there are no specifics on what these improvements would be. These ideas require money. The Foundation will ask for more information to understand how the promise of a Bay Trail will be realized by all Newark residents.

It's possible that we could use Measure B/BB funds to help build the Bay Trail, but wouldn't it be wise to secure as much money as possible by collecting more revenue from developers? Email your council members. Tell them to do the necessary due diligence to increase park impact fees immediately to cover our future costs! Tell them to hire a grant writer to help generate income for parks, be they neighborhood parks or linear parks: city.council@newark.org. We need this silver lining!

Angela Akridge
Volunteer, Newark Parks Foundation
www.newarkparks.org