California multifamily developer guides
Impact Fees, Exactions & Special Taxes
The Mitigation Fee Act's nexus and timing rules, statutory school fee caps, ADU fee exemptions, fee protests, and Mello-Roos/CFD special-tax diligence — how to bound the fee line in a California multifamily pro forma.
The Mitigation Fee Act: bounding the impact-fee line
Impact fees must be justified, timed and accounted for by statute — and a 90-day protest window decides whether you can ever get an unlawful fee back.
Read the guide →School fees: the one exaction with a statutory price ceiling
School districts charge by statutory formula — full and exclusive mitigation, per-square-foot caps, and exemptions your budget shouldn't miss.
Read the guide →Mello-Roos and district financing: the taxes hiding on title
CFD special taxes are senior, escalating and foreclosure-backed — diligence them like debt. And sometimes forming a district is how your own infrastructure gets financed.
Read the guide →Fee protests, nexus studies and AB 602: pushing back on the fee line
A protest letter costs a page and preserves the whole refund claim — miss the 90-day window and even an unconstitutional fee stays paid.
Read the guide →EIFDs, tax increment and the RDA legacy: public financing after redevelopment
The state killed tax-increment redevelopment in 2011; EIFDs rebuilt a consent-based version — and the RDA estate still shows up in title reports fifteen years later.
Read the guide →Utility connection fees, capacity charges and will-serve letters
Capacity charges are capped at cost of service and your fee schedule can be frozen — but no statute reserves you a transformer. Half the utility line is law, half is physics.
Read the guide →More developer guides
- Density Bonus & Zoning Incentives
- Entitlements & Streamlined Approvals
- Rent Control & Tenant Protections
- Demolition, Replacement Housing & Relocation
- CEQA & Environmental Review
- Affordable Housing Finance: LIHTC, Bonds & Rental Subsidies
- Building Codes & Construction Standards
- Subdivision, Condo Maps & Development Agreements
- Site Selection & Development Due Diligence
Every rule cited in these guides links to the verbatim statute or regulation in the California Code Library and the federal housing-law library.
Apply these rules to a real parcel
Ask the AI how fees & exactions play out in a specific city or county — grounded in the code text.