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- District Off-Site Mitigation Fee Program
The District’s Board of Directors adopted the Land Use Air Quality Mitigation Funds Policy (PDF) in April 2001 with an amendment to it in December 2008. The policy established the District Off-Site Mitigation Fee Program which provides an alternative to offset the increased emissions from new land use development projects.
The project applicant can utilize this program as an optional mitigation measure when the on-site mitigations are insufficient to offset their related air quality impacts to below the applicable thresholds. It is a voluntary measure which would be recommended by the District through the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review process to the applicants and lead agencies for consideration.
The fee is calculated based on the amount of emissions above the thresholds and the cost-effectiveness factor which is a measure of the dollars provided for each ton of covered emission reductions. The District's Review of land Use Projects under CEQA Policy asserts that the offsite mitigation fee calculation is tied to the cost effectiveness limit identified by the CARB Carl Moyer Program Guidelines. On October 12, 2017, the District's Board of Directors adopted the amendment of Review of Land Use Projects under CEQA Policy to set up the District's CEQA cost-effectiveness as $18,260 per ton and be adjusted by the California Consumer Price Index (CPI), starting in 2018. View the Board memo and policy amendment (PDF).
The current cost-effectiveness used for the District’s off-site mitigation fee calculation is $21,750 per ton of ozone precursors emissions (ROG or NOx), effective in July 2022.