The Sunnyvale and Fremont Union High school districts will be seeing a little more money from new development projects in the city.
Rather than receiving $1.98 per square foot for residential development and $0.32 per square foot for most categories of commercial and industrial development, the Sunnyvale School District will now be getting $2.08 per square foot for residential and up to $0.33 per square foot for commercial.
The Sunnyvale School District board of education on Aug. 7 unanimously voted to implement the increase. The state Allocation Board, which divides funds to school districts, approved the inflationary increase to developer fees Jan. 22. The fee may be increased every even-numbered year.
The district has collected statutory school fees, commonly known as developer fees, on new development within the district since the late 1980s.
While the state Allocation Board set a maximum increase at $3.36 per square foot for residential development and $0.54 for commercial development this year, because the Sunnyvale School District (SSD) has common territorial jurisdiction with the Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD), they have entered into a school fee sharing agreement in which the SSD is authorized to collect 61.8 percent of the statutory school fees.
The fee helps districts accommodate enrollment generated from the development by funding construction or acquisition of additional school facilities, remodeling existing facilities, incorporating new technology, and acquiring and installing additional portable classrooms and related facilities.
According to SSD superintendent Ben Picard, Cumberland, Cherry Chase and Ellis elementary schools as well as Sunnyvale Middle School are all approaching capacity. And while it hasn’t been implemented yet, the district is looking into capping enrollment at certain schools.
“While we still have capacity in other schools, these fees help augment our bond program and helps fund getting rid of old portable classrooms for nice, new permanent structures,” Picard said. “It allows us to pay for expanded facilities to accommodate increased enrollment without dipping into other resources.”
According to a 2013 study done by Schoolhouse Services on the development impact fee justification, Sunnyvale School District facilities are not adequate to accommodate existing enrollment at appropriate educational standards, and additional capacity is needed.
The study states that enrollment was 6,761 in 2012, whereas the district has enrollment capacity for 6,492 students at “appropriate educational planning standards.”
“In several schools there is insufficient capacity for the district to accommodate the students from the school’s attendance area. As a result, the district does not consider its present facilities adequate to house in the future the present number of students,” the report states.
The report also stated that new housing development within the district boundaries is expected to add 3,140 housing units, bringing about 298 more students to the district from 2011 to 2021.
“This increase in district enrollment will exacerbate the district’s current capacity shortage if new facilities are not built,” the report said. “It is assumed in this report that the additional capacity necessary to house enrollment from new development will be in the form of additions to the existing campuses. The estimated cost of these improvements is $9.92 million.”
Despite the projected impacts from new housing, Picard said the school district sees more growth from the city’s existing housing stock.
“Counter to what the general public may think, we are not seeing a lot of new enrollment from the new, expanding housing stock in the district as much as we are from the existing housing stock that turns over to a number of families,” Picard said. “Sunnyvale has certainly been booming in terms of high-density housing, which actually has a low student generation rate, and commercial development, which has no direct student rate impact.”
Several upgrades have been occurring in the past few years to help accommodate the growth within the districts.
For SSD in particular, Sunnyvale Middle School saw the opening of a new science classroom wing, which houses three science labs and two science classrooms. Cherry Chase now has a 7,300-square-foot multipurpose room, which can be used as an elementary school-size basketball or volleyball court, a cafeteria or a space for school-wide assemblies.
After two years of renovation, Cumberland Elementary has a new school office building, an upgraded multipurpose room with expanded kitchen, and new stage curtains, security system, lighting and acoustic panels. San Miguel also has a new multipurpose building, and saw the old multipurpose building converted into a new library. And Lakewood is getting a new library and energy upgrades to the existing classrooms.
Picard said the school district participated in a special development meeting on Aug. 21 with the city planning department to discuss current and future development projects.
The Cupertino Union School District board of education also voted to increase its school impact fees for residential and commercial/industrial development on Aug. 5. School impact fees were first established in the district in 1987 using a similar fee-splitting formula of 60 percent CUSD and 40 percent FUHSD. The fees were last adjusted in March 2012 to $1.92 per square foot for residential and between $0.01 to $0.31 per square foot for commercial/industrial development.
The district will now be receiving the new maximum K-8 fee, which for CUSD is now $2.02 per square foot on new residential construction and between $0.01 to $0.32 per square foot on new commercial/industrial development, depending on the type of development.