At the April 29 meeting, the Santa Clara City Council adopted a new field use fee that better serves youth sports, adjusted its municipal fee schedule and changed the city’s housing element to avoid a lawsuit.
Santa Clara’s youth sports organizations will see a reduction in their field use fees.
The organizations had historically enjoyed a free ride to use city sports fields. Last year, the Santa Clara City Council instituted fees to increase cost recovery in the wake of the city’s ongoing infrastructure budget crisis.
Many of the groups previously said the fees were an undue hardship, so the council directed city employees to return to the drawing board. After more than a year of negotiating with the groups, city employees returned to the city council with a fee structure that seemingly works for everyone.
The new schedule, adopted at the council meeting Tuesday night, delineates between various uses: city programs, resident youth nonprofit, resident adult nonprofit, resident, non-resident and commercial. Resident groups must hold an office in city limits and have 51% or more of their members living or going to school in Santa Clara.
Damon Sparacino, the city’s parks and recreation director, said the city compared rates at neighboring cities — Palo Alto, Cupertino, Saratoga, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Campbell.
“While the need to place a high value on youth sports, the need to recover operating costs as well as plan for long-term capital improvements has become necessary in order to continue to deliver high-quality facilities,” he said.
Starting next year, resident youth nonprofit groups will pay $8 per hour, down from the $14 per hour they had been paying since the council adopted fees for youth sports. That amount increases to $10 per hour the following year.
Resident adult nonprofit groups will see an increase from the $14 per hour they pay to $25 per hour next year and up to $30 per hour the following year.
The rates do not include additional fees that need to be ironed out for article turf and lighting use.
The heavy subsidy—roughly 97% for resident youth nonprofit—“aligns with city values,” Sparacino said.
Council Member Karen Hardy said separating the adult and youth sports “takes care of some of the heartburn” the council previously had.
Mike Walke, president of the Santa Clara Police Athletic League (PAL), said he was relieved the city employees were willing to work with the nonprofits to arrive at a reasonable fee instead of “just shoving something down their throats.”
“We think we can live with this,” he said. “As nonprofits, we would love to have zero, but in today’s world, that is not realistic.”
The West Side Little League also supported the compromise.
However, not everybody was happy.
Sisar Kudva, with American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), said the rate the city intends to charge non-resident nonprofit groups is unreasonable. That rate is equivalent to the commercial rate, which giants like Apple or Google would pay.
He said the high cost will deter groups that may have many Santa Clara residents among them—just not enough to meet the 51% threshold—from using the fields.
Council Member Kevin Park echoed that concern, saying having the fields underused because the rates for non-resident users are too high isn’t ideal. A lack of detail around such things as a cancellation policy also gave Park pause.
The rest of the council wasn’t as concerned.
“I like that we are prioritizing our residents,” Hardy said. “If there is no more time left over for other groups, I guess I’ll pass out Kleenexes.”
In a 6-1 vote, the council approved the recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Commission. Park was the lone dissenter.
Lawsuit Prompts Changes To City’s Housing Element
In accordance with a settlement agreement, the council also approved a change to its housing element. The housing element is part of the city’s general plan. It is updated every eight years. Its certification by the state allows the city to maintain local land-use control and be eligible for grants.
The need for the change came after the city settled a lawsuit with the Housing Action Coalition relating to a state law that aims to “affirmatively affirm fair housing.”
“This requires that living patterns are distributed throughout all opportunity areas with various income levels throughout the entire city,” said Afshan Hamid, the city’s community development director.
The change would add 3005 Democracy Way, also known as Mission Point, and remove 4701 Patrick Henry Drive, commonly referred to as Great America Technology Park, to the inventory of available housing sites.
The change does little to change the city’s overall inventory or the buffer mandated by the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). That buffer will still exceed 60% of the 11,632 units required.
However, the change effectively siphons the buffer from the lowest-income housing, shifting it to moderate income, which already sat more than 100% above the requirement. The RHNA allocation calls for at least a 15% buffer in each category. Prior to the settlement, the lowest-income housing had a 33% buffer. It now has an 18% buffer.
Park said he thought the buffer is too low, and that dipping into the lowest income buffer was unwise.
The council unanimously approved the change to the housing element, contingent on the execution of the settlement agreement.
Fee Schedule Updated
The council also adopted the city’s updated municipal fee schedule. This schedule is designed to offset the cost of city services that benefit a narrow band of users as opposed to the community on the whole.
Tess Hoang, senior management analyst, presented the schedule, which the city updates every two years, to the council.
On average, fees increased 3.2%. However, only 2% of fees increased beyond the basic cost-of-living increase. Of the 1,240 fees in the schedule, 70% increased by the cost-of-living adjustment. The city eliminated 57 fees, decreased 73 fees and 196 remained unchanged.
The council unanimously passed the new fee schedule, which goes into effect July 1.
Consent Calendar Spending
The council approved the following spending in one motion via the consent calendar:
- A five-year $5 million purchase order with GE Grid Solutions for “additional equipment and services” related to Silicon Valley Power’s (SVP) GE JungleMux System.
- A $441,046 amendment to agreements with Advanced Lighting Services, Inc. and American Power Solutions, Inc. citywide LED retrofit replacement. Total contract amount is now $941,046.
The next meeting is 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 1500 Warburton Ave. in Santa Clara.
Members of the public can participate in the City Council meetings on Zoom at https://santaclaraca.zoom.us/j/99706759306; Meeting ID: 997-0675-9306 or call 1 (669) 900-6833, via the City’s eComment (available during the meeting) or by email to PublicComment@santaclaraca.gov.
Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com
Previous City Council Meetings:
Council Sets Sights On Big-Ticket Events, Bond Projects for 2025
Santa Clara Gears Up For Super Bowl LX At Levi’s Stadium
Swim Center To Get Long-Awaited Repairs
For the record, Westside was NOT in support of the removal of the sliding fee scale. That had been agreed and voted on in our group meetings and was left out of the presentation without our knowledge.
I’m a Santa Clara resident that runs a youth nonprofit soccer club in Sunnyvale, where field priority rentals goes to clubs like ours with over 51% Sunnyvale residents. The change to make it mirror Sunnyvale’s residency requirement is a good thing for Santa Clara. Without it, the limited high-quality field space available was being inappropriately shared with youth sports clubs that have very few Santa Clara residents – including ones specifically taking advantage of this loophole – at the expense of youth sports clubs that truly do serve many Santa Clara kids.