Agenda - 02-07-2017 - 6-a - Minutes

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16 1 allow for a long enough construction timeframe. Northwood Ravin, the developer of Carraway 2 Village in Chapel Hill, proposed additional language that would pertain to projects with at least 3 100 dwelling units. This language is included in the resolution in Attachment 2. Adoption of this 4 resolution would allow an open-ended construction timeframe, provided the 2016 impact fee 5 amount is paid prior to June 30, 2019. 6 7 Staff notes that prior updates to school impact fees, which were first adopted in 1993 and have 8 been updated several times, did not provide for extensive grandfathering of projects. In the 9 past, projects that obtained a building permit prior to the impact fee effective date were allowed 10 to pay the prior fees, even if the certificate of occupancy was issued in the subsequent year(s), 11 but additional consideration was not made for projects that had only approved special use 12 permits or zoning compliance permits. Town of Hillsborough staff has stated a preference for 13 drawing the "grandfather line" at "projects that have active permits and are constructing either 14 buildings or infrastructure on site should be able to pay the current fees. Projects that do not yet 15 have construction authorization despite having conditional or special use permits should pay the 16 fees in place at the time construction is authorized" (see Attachment 6 which includes the 17 reasons for this preference). 18 19 Because of the open-ended nature of the Northwood Ravin proposal, staff has produced a third 20 option (Attachment 3) which includes the language proposed by Northwood Ravin but also 21 requires that a Certificate of Compliance be issued prior to December 31, 2020. The BOCC 22 could also choose to adopt a different construction outer-limit date for projects containing 100 23 or more dwelling units. 24 25 The resolution in Attachment 1 is the resolution proposed by staff at the December 5 meeting. It 26 would allow"grandfathering" for the 2016 fee levels if a building permit application is submitted 27 prior to January 1, 2017, the permit is issued within 180 days, and a Certificate of Compliance 28 (aka, Certificate of Occupancy) is issued within 365 days of building permit issuance. This 29 essentially gives builders one year after a building permit is issued to complete construction and 30 qualify for the 2016 fee levels. (This provision is applicable for any projects that do not have an 31 approved Zoning Compliance Permit - see paragraph below.) 32 33 Also within the resolution in Attachment 1, projects with an approved Zoning Compliance Permit 34 (ZCP) would be given until December 31, 2017 to apply for a building permit(s) and a Certificate 35 of Compliance would have to be issued within 365 days of building permit issuance in order to 36 qualify for 2016 fee levels. A building permit would have to be issued within 180 days of the 37 application date; this provision is included to deter applicants from submitting extremely 38 inadequate permit applications, perhaps in an attempt to "game the system". Most building 39 permits are issued within 30 days of the application date if the plans are done well and require 40 no or only minor revisions. Under the timelines proposed in the attached resolution, the 41 outermost date limit for projects with a ZCP by January 1, 2017 is June 30, 2019 and this would 42 apply only if building permit issuance takes the full 180 day limit. 43 44 Attachment 5 contains graphical presentations of the timeframes, as they pertain to the 45 resolution in Attachment 1. 46 47 At the December 5 BOCC meeting, the BOCC requested information on how many large 48 projects grandfathering may apply to. Staff has requested information from municipal planning 49 staffs but, as of agenda printing deadlines, had received information only from the Town of 50 Hillsborough. Information will be presented at the December 13 meeting, if it is available.