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Council introduces overhaul of development code sections; staff updates impact-fee rules to conform with SB 937
Summary
City staff introduced an ordinance updating multiple development-code chapters (including the development impact fee chapter) and added redline edits to implement new state rules in Senate Bill 937 about timing and interest on impact fees for certain residential projects; council introduced the ordinance and found it exempt from CEQA.
The Santa Paula City Council introduced Ordinance No. 1343 on March 19 to amend several chapters of the city’s development code — including the development impact fee chapter — and directed staff to proceed to the formal adoption process.
City attorneys and staff told the council the amendments are part of a multi‑year, comprehensive municipal code overhaul that began in 2024. The current package (Set 2) revises Chapter 16.0 (development impact fees) and several technical chapters (16.01, 16.03 and 16.05), fixes formatting and numbering errors, updates internal references and reflects current staff titles and procedures.
A substantive part of the package implements state law changes in Senate Bill 937 (effective Jan. 1, 2025), an amendment to California’s Mitigation Fee Act affecting certain residential category projects (for example, affordable housing developments, streamlined ministerial approvals, small multifamily projects and projects eligible for density bonuses). Under SB 937, cities may not collect impact fees in an amount greater than the total required at the time the building permit is issued for qualifying designated residential development projects; the rule freezes the fee amount that may be charged after the building permit is issued. The statute also prohibits charging interest on deferred fees for those qualifying projects.
Staff presented a redlined change to the impact-fee section to remove ambiguous, double-negative language. The corrected text preserves the SB 937 rule that fees may not be increased after a qualifying permit is issued and clarifies that interest may not be charged on deferred amounts. The edit also removed a redundant cross‑reference that had been retained in multiple places in the draft.
Councilmembers asked staff to confirm that utility‑connection charges remain collectible at the time the connection is requested (an exception in SB 937) and asked whether staff had data on the prospective fiscal impact; staff answered that the city does not yet have an estimate of aggregate fee deferrals or the total fiscal exposure, because the statute targets a specific set of qualifying projects and applies only to applications submitted on or after Jan. 1, 2025.
The council moved to introduce the ordinance with the redline amendments read into the record and to find the measure exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. The motion passed on a unanimous vote; the matter will return for formal adoption in a future council meeting after required public-noticing steps.
Ending: The action advances the city’s multi‑year code modernization and brings the development impact fee schedule into alignment with the state’s SB 937 changes; staff said they will track any projects affected by the statute and report fiscal impacts as information becomes available.
