Pub. 4 2014-2015 Issue 2

21 share requirements. All those things can be brought up well in advance and you can incorporate them into your financing mechanism or your financing product. Also, in Layton we have a group, we call it a pre-con committee, which involves a city engineer, the planners, attorneys, fire department, and other individuals who have a stake in what will come into the city. The pre-con committee gets the opportunity to go through the ideas, a proposed location, and many of the concerns. Those concerns are drafted up in a document and submitted back to the school. Oftentimes, it is possible to incorporate the construction of roads and essential improve- ments into the impact fees to receive payback because of the road. When someone is involved in the process early certain reimbursements can be incorporated into the impact fees. When in the charter school approval process should you begin talking to your local city? Chris: Sit down with the city early and talk to them about locations and sites. This helps to identify locations and the pros and cons. One of the areas we were interested in they had not really moved any infrastructures, sewer water, and those kinds of things. If we were to go in that kind of spot our impact fees would have been significantly higher. It was good for us to get in early and identify some of those areas that made more sense and look at some of the impacts. This helped to develop a great working relationship with the city. Go in, work with your city, and sit down with them. The law now requires certain meetings, but if you get in early enough and start working with them you can each address those issues. Developing that relationship early can have a benefit throughout your school’s tenure. Just because you build your building the city doesn’t disappear. Building a good relationship with your city can be valuable long-term. What are the best ways to plan for and manage traffic flows? Senator Vickers: Number one looking at it early, if we can get involved early and often we can look at those kind of things and try to perceive. Oftentimes there are issues of ingress and egress. A lot of those concerns can be alleviated if there is more involvement with the process with the city early on. Get involved early and if it comes to the point that they need to have some kind of traffic study, then do that with the qualified professional who can take a harder, more in-depth look at it as well. Royce: One thing that I might note as I go out and visit a lot of charter schools, it’s abundantly clear that the develop- ers of schools are becoming much more sophisticated. You have about 1000 kids coming into a school over three or so hours of time, between 7 and 9 in the morning and between 1:30 and 3 in the afternoon. Some of the earlier schools haven’t always thought through those details and I think it becomes something that every new charter school needs to consider. It’s just a part of the conversation that as a new school or you’re expanding that you understand how well your developer or builder understands ingress egress. You can eliminate a lot of those neighbor problems if you have someone who understands how to develop a site in a way that minimizes that traffic impact. Chris: On one of my campuses in West Jordan there’s a public school not too far away and the city of West Jordan came out to meet with our school to see if we’d be willing to consider getting out ten minutes earlier to help alleviate some of the area traffic issues. And that’s something we’ve told them we’d be happy to consider. Developing a good relationship with your city certainly has value when you’re constructing your building, but it will have long-term value as you work with them on a lot of these traffic and safety issues such as sidewalks and crossing guards. What are the best practices the school’s founders can follow talking with the city in which they are building their school? Chris: You have to do everything in about a year and a half. You’re building your building, you’re planning your curriculum, you’re hiring your teachers and it’s a big process. Hiring and finding a good builder is an important task. And I would just say once again and reiterate getting in as early as you can with the city. If you have an early discussion and can highlight any issues such as, is there a particular neighbor or development you need to be aware of? Getting in early and being proactive on that front will be appreciated by the city and will solve you a lot of pain. Gary: The best charter schools that we’ve had are those who have come in prepared, done their homework, and have become familiar with the city engineer and his expectations. He’s a big one because he’s going to talk to you about the infrastructure as well as impact fees. The two charter schools that are my favorites here in Layton, came in with answers to the questions before we even asked the questions. We really appreciate when they come in prepared with qualified engineers and professionals that have done this before and can really expedite things because of their relationships. I think that if I were to underline one thing it would be that work relationship, because it is relationships that will get your school built. Royce: I think the real takeaway as we’ve said many times here is make sure you know what you’re doing and make sure you establish those relationships as early as possible, because it will avoid a lot of problems by doing that and make solving those problems, when they do come up, a lot easier. Senator Vickers: I’ve found throughout my career in all aspects that if someone tries to hide something or cuts a corner it’s going to come back to bite them. If you’re a developer get involved with your local community early so they can develop those relationships. And as you go through it should be smooth and not contentious. You’ll find that it’s a much better process and will be a more enjoyable experience for everybody involved.