Brentwood Updates BIA Members

Brentwood has launched a master planning process for a newly designated Innovation Center @ Brentwood along the Highway 4 Bypass between Old Sand Creek Road and Lone Tree Way, a 400-acre site envisioned as a mix of high-density housing and high quality jobs. The Innovation Center was part of a wide-ranging discussion between Brentwood Public Works Director Miki Tsubota and BIA members during a special virtual meeting held on April 1, 2021.

The Innovation Center @ Brentwood will require several million dollars in new infrastructure, a portion of which will be funded through impact fees on development. It will take several years for the specific infrastructure projects to be fully incorporated into the city’s Capital Improvements Program or CIP, which forms the basis of impact fee levels, Tsubota explained. The city updates its five-year CIP each spring.

Among Tsubota’s other comments:

• Brentwood will no longer collect fire impact fees but has transferred that responsibility to the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District. The City Council has also agreed to pass to the fire district roughly $7 million in fees that have already been collected along with five acres of city-owned land off Empire Road where a new fire station and administrative building are planned.

• The current Brentwood City Council favors the construction of affordable housing units rather than the payment of in-lieu fees, a shift that could influence housing projects that come before the city. At the same time, councilmembers have expressed strong concerns about the potential impacts on the community from housing that is affordable by design, particularly accessory dwelling units (ADUs) or what many call in-law units or granny flats. The state has approved a number of laws in recent years intended to increase the numbers of ADUs as one solution to the state’s housing crisis.

• The Contra Costa Clean Water Program has joined with other Bay Area jurisdictions to submit comments on the pending San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board’s draft Municipal Regional Stormwater Permit update. The requirements from the upcoming permit will likely have impacts on local government and the development community.

• Developers may see some impacts stemming from what appears to be another drought year although it is too soon to say what form those restrictions may take. 

• As part of a national COVID relief program for local jurisdictions, Brentwood anticipates receiving up to $12 million in federal funds in the next two years. How that money will be spent remains unclear but Tsubota said it will be up to the City Council to decide how the money will be used to mitigate the pandemic's impact on the community.