In a city widely acknowledged to be woefully short of parks, Los Angeles has about $77.5 million in fees it has collected from developers for outdoor improvements but has yet to spend, a city report says.
The report, issued by city parks chief Jon Kirk Mukri, contains noteworthy passages despite its bureaucratic prose:
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday, October 22, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 31 words Type of Material: Correction
Developer fees: An article in Saturday's California section on unspent revenue from developer fees for outdoor improvements in Los Angeles misidentified Carol Schatz, president of the Central City Assn., as Carl.
"While . . . fee collections have grown rapidly, the necessary Department staff and infrastructure for the proper accounting, tracking, and distribution of these funds have never been acquired," wrote Mukri.
Nor, he added, does the city have a comprehensive plan for matching the money with the needs around the city.
The parks issue came to a head recently, with some downtown developers expressing anger over the city's proposed elimination of a fee discount. The so-called Quimby fees, named for the 1975 law that created them, range from about $3,000 to $10,000 per new residential unit.
Developers who have been wanting to know how the city accounts for and spends those fees are particularly peeved by Mukri's acknowledgment that his department doesn't have the answers.
"In a city that cries poverty every 20 minutes, it's amazing there's that kind of money waiting to be spent on the thing that people want the most," said Tom Gilmore, who has been developing apartments and lofts downtown for the last decade.
"I'm not complaining about paying the fees, I'm just saying, 'Show me some results,' " he added. "I want to see green space -- and not just the green space outside City Hall."
Gilmore has filed an appeal to the proposed elimination of the discount. He said he may drop it if the city can demonstrate where the Quimby fees are going.
Carl Schatz, president of the Central City Assn., which represents downtown developers, was more scathing. "The report from the city was just one excuse after another. We've yet to see one blade of grass from this."
City Controller Laura Chick has said that she will audit how the Quimby fees are tracked.
The report also shows that some council districts have significant sums of unspent money.
Councilman Bill Rosendahl's district, on the city's far west side, has nearly $12 million yet to be earmarked. And the council district in the southwestern San Fernando Valley represented by Councilman Dennis Zine has $11.3 million.
