Adequate Public Facilities

In many localities, the rate of growth is so rapid that it is outstripping local governments’ abilities to provide adequate capacity in schools and other public facilities for the new residents. Many localities have overburdened infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms, even though they are making large investments in new infrastructure and new schools. Much of this problem is due to the fact that growth rates have been much more rapid than local governments anticipated at the time of approving re-zoning.

What is an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance?

An adequate public facilities ordinance is a growth management approach that ties or conditions development approval to the availability and adequacy of public facilities and services, thus ensuring that new development does not take place unless the infrastructure is available to support it. An Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance (APFO) is an ordinance adopted by the local government that allows it to defer the approval of developments based upon a finding by the governing body that public facilities would not be adequate to support the proposed development at build out.

How an Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Works:

1. The Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance is linked to the locality’s Capital Improvement Program, which establishes a schedule of public facility construction over a five or six year period and details how they should be financed.

2. The ordinance identifies the types and levels of service that are needed to permit new development and establishes a policy about when the infrastructure and public services must be in place relative to the impact of development.

3. The development must demonstrate that the required levels of public facilities and services are, or will be, available to the proposed project.

4. Most Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances deal with only one or two types of facilities, such as roads or sewers that have caused critical problems in the community, while others apply such provisions to the full range of public facilities.

What are the components of an effective Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance?

· Identifies the types of public facilities to be considered.

· Limits the period of time during which the deferral on development imposed by an APFO can be in force.

· Requires the locality to have in place a capital facilities plan to remedy the infrastructure inadequacy that has been the basis for the development deferral.

What does granting Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance authority do?

· Allows localities to time development to coincide with the taxpayers’ ability to pay for the schools, roads, public safety and other necessities upon which development is dependent.

· Helps to ensure that development doesn’t proceed at the expense of decent schools, public safety, and good neighborhoods.

· Helps to ensure that the huge backlog of approved development in many high growth localities does not bankrupt localities, or taxpayers.

· Ensures that localities that wish to manage growth must adopt capital budgets that will support growth.

What Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances legislation does not do:

· Stop growth.

· Violate constitutionally guaranteed property rights.

· Excuse localities from their obligation to provide rights.

· Impose unfair costs on developers.

· Downzone property.

Potential Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance Benefits:

1. Allows a community to maintain control over the timing and sequence of new development.

2. Forces the community to link its comprehensive land use plan with its capital improvement program, a principle of good planning that is often ignored.

3. Can encourage contiguous or even infill development because of its proximity to existing urban infrastructure and services. To the extent that land in facility-provided areas is limited, it will encourage developers to build at higher densities.