Helping to spur economic development, the Sacramento City Council last night approved the Shovel Ready Development Protection Investment Extension, allowing customers citywide to preserve their financial investment by extending already approved entitlements by three years. Often, these approvals come with heavy pre-development costs, including design and engineering work and fees.
As part of the extension, projects will remain in a “shovel-ready” status until market conditions improve or these projects are ready to be developed. In addition, the City will not require builders and developers of these projects to pay additional entitlement-related fees once projects are slated for development.
The City has determined that there are at least several hundred projects that are in the entitlement phase — from high-rise buildings to retail establishments — and millions of dollars invested in overall development costs.
Read our letter to the City Council Below:
Honorable Mayor Johnson and Council
City of Sacramento
915 I Street
Sacramento,California 95814
RE: Item 8- Shovel Ready Development Investment Protection Extension 2012- Support
Dear Mayor Johnson and Councilmembers,
Region Builders, a broad coalition of building industry associations and businesses founded by the Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange, strongly supports the proposed extension of the Shovel Ready Investment Protection Ordinance. As the title indicates, this legislation protects the private owner and City’s investment in local construction projects that are on the verge of being built as the economy recovers.
The Shovel Ready Protection Ordinance, enacted by the Council on February 26th, 2009, essentially affords local builders additional time to finish their projects by letting them extending their existing land use entitlements, instead of having them forge through the extensive land development process all over again. This Ordinance would extend all active planning entitlements (except subdivision and parcel maps) for an additional three years.
As you all know, the land development process takes a significant amount of money, time, and effort to successfully complete projects especially in the present economic downturn. Thus, we applaud the Council and City Staff’s effort to provide another valuable economic incentive, which we might add has no direct cost to the City. We believe this item will avoid substantial losses to the City and bolster the vital building industry.
If you have any questions, please contact our Political Director Scott Whyte at (916) 442-8991
Thank you for your time and consideration.
