Approve and authorize the Chair to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Davis regarding the Davis Pass-Through Agreement. (No general fund impact) (Pogledich/May)

Approve and authorize the Chair to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Davis regarding the Davis Pass-Through Agreement (Att. A).

The purpose of this item is to approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Davis (Att. A, "MOU") to resolve an ambiguity regarding the Davis Pass-Through Agreement (Att. B).

In 1987, the County, City, and Redevelopment Agency of the City of Davis (“Davis RDA”) entered into a pass-through agreement in anticipation of the City adopting a redevelopment plan for the Davis Redevelopment Project.  The agreement was executed pursuant to Health & Safety Code Section 33401, which authorized the Davis RDA to “pass-through” to the County the share of the County's property taxes that otherwise would have gone to the Davis RDA. The pass-through payments are conditioned on the County not approving urban development in the unincorporated area around Davis. 

The parties revised and reentered into the Pass-Through Agreement in 2001.  As a result of the amendments, there is some ambiguity about when the agreement ends.  The agreement defines the "Payment Period" as ending by 2025, but other provisions of the agreement indicate the payments should last longer.  The parties desire to maintain the basic tenets of the Pass-Through Agreement, which ushered in a period of cooperation between the County and the City as to the land use of the unincorporated areas surrounding Davis.  This MOU aims to maintain the spirit of cooperation created by the agreement by clarifying that the pass-through payments last until the RDA no longer receives property taxes from the Plan (currently estimated to be until 2037), and to make the development conditions coterminous with those payments.

The County Administrator's Office and County Counsel's Office negotiated the MOU with staff from the City of Davis.