Loomis delays setting inclusionary in-lieu fee; directs staff workshop after planning commission review

The Loomis Town Council on Tuesday reviewed a staff-commissioned study about an "in-lieu" fee that developers may pay instead of constructing required affordable units on-site. Staff and consultants presented two calculation methods and the council agreed to postpone adopting a fee and hold a public workshop to refine the approach.

The study used an affordability-gap approach. Consulting staff from AECOM explained the difference between a "like-kind" calculation, which estimates the subsidy needed to make a unit of the same type affordable (calculated in the study at about $17 per square foot for for-sale units and $22 per square foot for rental units), and a "non like-kind" approach that measures the subsidy to produce a smaller, simpler affordable unit (the planning commission's preferred alternative produced lower figures: roughly $10/sq ft for for-sale and $11/sq ft for rentals). Town staff said an earlier implementation memo contained a calculation error that understated some fees; the memo was corrected and reissued before council discussion.

Why it matters: Loomis adopted an inclusionary housing ordinance in March 2022 requiring 10% of new units to be affordable or for developers to use other compliance options. Because Loomis is small and has limited development capacity, staff said in-lieu fees are likely to be an important tool for producing or preserving affordable housing in the town. Council members stressed the need to balance fees that can finance meaningful housing work without making projects financially infeasible.

Key details discussed: - Methodology: Affordability-gap vs. production-cost methods. The study used the affordability-gap method. - Two fee sets: "like-kind" (higher, meant to subsidize an affordable unit of the same type) and "non like-kind" (lower, meant to subsidize a different, smaller affordable unit). - Application: The memo and study show examples for subdivisions and single-family projects and include fractional-unit math when an ordinance requirement produces a partial unit obligation (for example, a 0.5 unit obligation on a small subdivision produces a pro-rated in-lieu amount). - Comparative context: Staff presented nearby jurisdictions' approaches and noted wide variation (some jurisdictions charge per required affordable unit; others use per-square-foot rates). Loomis's smaller scale means it will accumulate fee revenues much more slowly than larger cities.

Council action and next steps: Council did not adopt a fee at the meeting. Instead it asked staff to prepare a focused public workshop (to include planning commission participation and stakeholder input) to revisit fee levels, the ordinance's eligibility thresholds (for example, the planning commission asked staff to consider raising the project-size cap under which developers can pay 100% in-lieu rather than construct units), and implementation choices such as indexing or automatic escalation. Staff will return with a proposed scope, budget and schedule for the workshop and follow-up recommendations.

Quotes: "The fee study is rigorous, but there's a policy balance here — we want fees that help create housing but don't stop projects from moving forward," said Matthew Gerken of AECOM during his presentation.

Ending: Council members and several residents urged a careful, transparent workshop process to let the town weigh the tradeoffs between revenue generation and housing production. No final fee was set at the meeting.