OAKLAND -- The city is moving toward approving new developer fees to pay for affordable housing that are higher than previously proposed, and could at first exclude portions of East Oakland.

A City Council economic committee on Tuesday supported a proposal by four council members to gradually increase the fees for multifamily, market-rate housing developments to $24,000 per unit. The fees paid by developers would be used to fund affordable housing and improve transportation and city services such as parks and libraries.

The proposal, crafted by council members Lynette Gibson McElhaney and Anne Campbell Washington -- who also serve on the committee -- and council members Abel Guillen and Dan Kalb, is the latest iteration on a topic that has been studied for more than two years as Oakland grapples with its share of a regional housing crisis.

An ordinance based on the motion will return to the council's Community and Economic Development Committee later this month before it moves to the full City Council for final approval.

It will include higher fees in denser and historically more affluent areas of the city. In a zone that includes downtown, most neighborhoods around Lake Merritt, and the Oakland hills, the per unit fee assessed on new multifamily housing developments would begin Sept. 1 at $5,500 per unit, increase to $13,000 in July 2017, and rise to $22,000 in July 2018. The city would also require developers to pay $750 per unit to help improve transportation and another $1,250 for improvements to parks, libraries and other city services.


That means that by 2018, a developer would pay $24,000 per unit. Earlier city reports suggested the fees be set at $20,000 in 2018.

Under the proposal the fees would be lower in West and East Oakland, topping out in 2018 at $19,250 in West Oakland and portions of East Oakland from Lake Merritt to 23rd Avenue. In 2019, the fees in most of East Oakland would reach $13,000. The committee also suggested delaying the fees in East Oakland until 2018 to encourage development there. One exception, however, might be the massive Coliseum City project.

Three of the council committee's members on Tuesday -- Gibson McElhaney, Campbell Washington and Rebecca Kaplan -- supported the latest proposal, which was released during the meeting. Councilman Larry Reid, who represents East Oakland, said he would not make a decision until the ordinance language was brought back for further review, but generally supported the fee structure. Reid said he wants affordable units included within or near new market-rate housing.

The "impact fees" would be a first for Oakland, which is behind the curve in the Bay Area, where many cities already require developers to pay up when building housing.

Affordable housing activists have called for the city to immediately approve higher fees seen in other Bay Area cities, such as the $28,000 per unit requirement in Berkeley and Emeryville.

"It is not a surprise to developers that Oakland, like 30 other cities in the Bay Area, is adopting impact fees, and they are not going to run away when you pass this," said Jeff Levin, policy director of East Bay Housing Organizations. "The market is not going to be killed by a fee, the chance of people to stay in Oakland will be killed by people not having a fee."

Greg McConnell, president and CEO of the Jobs and Housing Coalition, said the fees could threaten projects already in the development pipeline.

"You are going to eliminate housing production and exacerbate the very crisis that has been created," McConnell said. "I think the time has come to be just candid and honest with folks. The impact fee is a political fee, and it's something that is not going to help a lot and it could very well hurt a lot."

David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.