We recently added a “Developer Contributions” Tip series: Tip 257, Developer Contributions for Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA), and Tip 258, Developer Contributions for Incentive Zoning. These tips outline the plan and process requirements related to our zoning review and our policy and technical review of your projects where Mandatory Housing Affordability applies, and/or you elect to use incentive zoning.
A developer contribution is payment or other benefit provided as part of a proposed project and is required in certain instances by the Land Use Code to mitigate the impacts of new development and/or to achieve extra floor area in a project. Developer contributions may address local needs for affordable housing, childcare, open space, historic preservation, and preservation of regional farms and forests. Developer contributions are generally required by the Mandatory Housing Affordability requirements, incentive zoning, or both.
Where required, you need to document your developer contributions on your plans before we issue a master use permit or building permit. Before we issue a building permit, you may also need to provide recorded agreements and declarations to document the ongoing terms of your contribution(s) and make any required payments. Tip 257 and Tip 258 provide further information on what you need to provide in your plans and, when required, the other documents that you need to execute and record. The Tips also step through the timing of our plan and document review, and provide samples of how to present your developer contributions in the plans.
If you plan to achieve extra or bonus floor area through a transfer of development rights (TDR) or potential, please remember that you need a SDCI TDR Availability Letter for the sending site. You should have this before you apply for a master use permit for your project. You can make a separate application concurrent with your master use permit review, but this may cause delays in our approval. To request the availability letter, please submit a Miscellaneous Request for SDCI Services form. This letter is required before any permit is issued that uses TDR to achieve extra or bonus floor area. Tip 258 contains additional information on TDR Availability Letters.