This is a companion article to UC Berkeley lawsuit decisions may affect Arcata too on Arcata1.com, from June 13, 2022, with over 300 views. Please see that article for more information and links to more outside articles.

Should Cal Poly Humboldt contribute to help paying for the city services that they use?

Roads, water systems, wastewater management, police, fire protection — and the issues surrounding the addition of thousands of people into an already questionable infrastructure. How much should Cal Poly Humboldt pay, as part of Cal Poly’s expansion to double the number of students?

The question is whether a public college is required to contribute to a local city for the cost of services involved by the college.

This is done at by least three University of California campuses, by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and by an unknown number of other California State University campuses. [Note to the readers:  If you have further information on this, please contact me.]

The 2023-2024 operating budget for Cal Poly Humboldt is $158.7 million.

Starting in 2005, UC Berkeley agreed to pay the City of Berkeley $1.5 million a year for its use of city services, including fire, police, emergency services and the oversight of the health department. That amount grew to $1.8 million by 2021. The new agreement has the UC paying the city about $4.1 million a year. (There are other stipulations in the new agreement that are generally considered to be against the interests of the people of Berkeley, including limiting the City’s ability to bring suit against the University.)

During the depositions for the lawsuits that resulted in that agreement, it was disclosed that the cost to the City of Berkeley for these services was about $21 million a year. This is the basis of another lawsuit, this one against the City of Berkeley. If the costs to the City are $21 million, why did the City of Berkeley negotiate for being paid just $4.1 million?

In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled that public colleges must pay surrounding communities for increased traffic, firefighting and other costs caused by campus expansions. Any college or tax-exempt agency will have to recognize the full range of costs, including environmental costs.

At that time, Cal State Monterey Bay wanted to expand their campus from 3,800 to 25,000 over the next 24 years. It was estimated that the cost to nearby communities would be over $20 million over the first ten years of the expansion, for roads, water systems, wastewater management, and fire protection. 

The California Supreme Court said California law protects state agencies from certain types of assessments but not from responsibility for the off-site environmental consequences of their actions. The case is City of Marina vs. Board of Trustees of the California State University, S117816.

The Marina ruling was applied in court rulings involving UC Berkeley in 2020 and UC San Diego in 2015, and San Diego State University in 2008. (See Casetext.com here and here and Anylaw.com here.)

Colleges must pay local costs

By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer 
From SF Gate  August 1, 2006
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/STATE-SUPREME-COURT-Colleges-must-pay-local-2515070.php

California’s public colleges must pay surrounding communities for increased traffic, firefighting and other costs caused by campus expansions, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The justices unanimously rejected arguments by California State University that it is not obliged to pick up some of the local costs of an expansion of its Monterey Bay campus because it is exempt from local property taxes.

The ruling could have implications far beyond the Monterey area. Local governments and taxpayer groups in several cities have complained that the CSU and University of California systems routinely ignore the burdens their growth plans impose on already tight municipal budgets.

State law requires public agencies, just like private developers, to prevent or reduce their projects’ impact on the environment, Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said in Monday’s ruling. She said money paid by a university to an affected local agency, in an amount subject to negotiation between the parties, is not a tax.

Environmental impacts can be broadly defined under state law to include such items as the need to build more sewage treatment plants or find a way to cope with more traffic.

CSU argued that spending millions of dollars statewide to ease the effects of campus expansions on local cities would mean less money for classrooms, professors’ salaries and outreach effort for poor youths. Werdegar replied that “while education may be CSU’s core function, to avoid or mitigate the environmental effects of its projects is also one of CSU’s functions.”

Although the ruling addressed laws governing public colleges, it also applies to other tax-exempt state and local agencies, said Mary Hudson, lawyer for the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, an agency of local government representatives that administers land occupied by the former Army base north of Monterey. The agency has been challenging the university’s environmental review of its expansion plans since 1998.

Under the ruling, any agency contemplating a project “will have to recognize the full range of costs, including environmental costs,” Hudson said.

Locally, Berkeley and the University of California settled a similar suit last year in which the university will pay some of the city’s costs of transportation, sewer and storm water service and fire protection caused by UC Berkeley’s long-range development plan, said Assistant City Attorney Zach Cowan, who filed arguments on behalf of city governments in Monday’s case. He said Monday’s ruling preserves local governments’ ability to negotiate such payments in future cases.

Clara Potes-Fellows, spokeswoman for CSU, said the university would negotiate with the Fort Ord authority to determine its share of the costs, and would seek funding from the Legislature. Despite its outcome, the ruling was welcome for the clarity it brought to the issue, she said.

The CSU system hopes to expand its Monterey Bay campus from its current enrollment of 3,800 to 25,000 by 2030. The campus opened in 1995 on 1,370 acres of former Fort Ord property.

The Fort Ord authority has estimated that the expansion would cost nearby communities $20.5 million over the next decade to pay for improvements in roads, water supply, drainage, wastewater management and fire protection. University trustees agreed in 1998 to pay some of the local costs but denied any responsibility for the costs of roads and fire services, saying they were exempted by state law.

Overturning a lower-court ruling in the university’s favor, the state’s high court said California law protects state agencies from certain types of assessments but not from responsibility for the off-site environmental consequences of their actions.

The case is City of Marina vs. Board of Trustees of the California State University, S117816.

UC Berkeley will more than double what it pays the city under new settlement agreement

• In its responses to UC Berkeley’s new long-range plan and draft environmental impact report, as well as in public comments, Berkeley has said that UC Berkeley actually uses about $21 million a year in city services.
• UC Berkeley will make a lump sum payment into the city’s housing trust fund to compensate for taking rent-controlled units off the market, said [Berkeley Mayor] Arreguín. He could not comment on the amount.

Other Links

UC Berkeley lawsuit decisions may affect Arcata too — Arcata1.com, June 2022