Tehachapi Municipal Code Ch. 17.32 Improvements

Improvements required as a condition of approval shall be completed at the subdivider's expense prior to filing a final tract map or final parcel map with the county recorder, unless an improvement agreement requiring completion of such improvements upon terms mutually agreeable to the city council and the subdivider has been entered into and improvement security has been posted as provided in this chapter.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

The improvement agreement referred to in Section 17.32.010 shall be secured by one of the items described in Section 66499 of the Map Act, any of which shall be at the option of and subject to the approval of the city.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

A. The form of bond to secure the faithful performance of the improvement agreement shall be in substantially the same form as provided for in Section 66499.1 of the Government Code.

B. The form of bond for the security of laborers and material men shall be in substantially the same form as provided for in Section 66499.2 of the Government Code.

C. Appropriate modifications shall be made in such form if the bond is being furnished for the performance of an act provided for by agreement.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

The improvement security shall be provided in the amount of:

A. One hundred percent of the total estimated cost of the improvement or act to be performed conditioned upon the faithful performance of the act or agreement; and as otherwise provided and required by Section 66499.3 of the Map Act;

B. Such security shall be released in accordance with the terms of the improvement agreement.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

Work on public improvements shall be deemed accepted upon acceptance by the city engineer; provided, however, that the warranty period(s) shall commence upon recordation of a notice of completion. Work on private improvements shall be deemed accepted, for purposes of satisfaction of the improvement agreement only, upon receipt by the city engineer of a certificate signed by a registered engineer stating that all such improvements have been constructed in accordance with the plans and specifications approved for the subdivision by the city engineer.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

A. Improvements required in a subdivision for which a final tract map is required shall be installed to permanent line and grade and to the satisfaction of the city engineer in accordance with the requirements of the planning commission, in accordance with standard specifications of the city on file in the office of the city engineer and in accordance with all applicable provisions of Chapter 17.28.

B. The minimum improvements which the subdivider makes or agrees to make prior to acceptance and approval of the final tract map by the city council shall be:

1. Grading, curbs and gutters, drainage and drainage structures necessary to the proper use and drainage of streets, highways, alleys and ways and to the public safety;

2. Installation and surfacing of streets, highways, alleys and ways;

3. Sidewalks, except where sidewalks are premature in relation to the public needs of the present and immediate future;

4. Sanitary sewer facilities and separate connections for each lot, except as such requirement may be waived by the city engineer and planning director in accordance with policies established by them therefor. Dry sewer lines shall be installed wherever outfall sewer lines are not available unless the city engineer, with the approval of the State Regional Water Quality Control Board, determines an exception to such requirement to be appropriate;

5. Water system with mains of minimum sizes as described below and having a sufficient number of outlets to furnish adequate domestic water supply for each lot of the subdivision and to provide adequate fire protection to meet local neighborhood needs, each lot created shall be provided with a minimum of one service outlet. Water mains of the following minimum diameters shall be constructed in the following locations: all section lines = twelve inches; all quarter section or interior center of section lines = ten inches; all fire hydrants = six inches; all other development pipelines = eight inches except for individual service laterals. Appropriately sized mains (ten or twelve inches) shall be placed in the section boundaries if any portion of the project development borders on the east-west or north-south section line, regardless of the development interior piping design. Length of section or center of section water mains shall be the linear dimension of the project development fronting on the quarter section or full section line. Five foot pipe stubs with end caps and thrust blocks shall be installed with each valve pipe stub.

6. Services from public utilities, including cable television, and services from sanitary sewers shall be made available for each lot, and in such manner as will obviate the necessity for disturbing the street pavement, gutter, culvert and curb, when service connections are made; provided, however, as to cable television service, that the requirement for installation of such services to any industrial tract may be waived if, based upon a waiver requested by a subdivider supported with proof of satisfaction of the following conditions, the planning commission finds that the omission of such requirement will not create a break in cable television service (to properties in the vicinity of the tract map) or, even if such omission would result in a break in cable television service, the closest available connection to existing cable television facilities is more than five hundred feet from the closest point in the tract map to the point of such connection (measured along existing or proposed utility easements);

7. Street name signs;

8. Chain-link fence between any subdivision and the right-of-way of any drainage facility, which shall be approved by the city;

9. Street lighting;

10. Final soil report shall have been completed and approved by the building director and city engineer prior to the beginning of construction of any buildings or structures;

11. Any utility distribution facilities, including cable television, must be placed underground. Where applicable, such installation shall be in accordance with rules and regulations of the Public Utilities Commission of the state;

12. All subdividers are required to furnish fire hydrants, hydrant burys and necessary bury extensions and all necessary bolts and gaskets, which shall be approved by the city.

13. Walls, fences and landscaping as required by ordinance, city standard, or the advisory agency, to be maintained by a maintenance district or by an association of property owners pursuant to a declaration of covenants approved by the city engineer.

Exceptions to the above-stated minimum requirements may be allowed in tracts having private streets with the approval of the advisory agency at the time of approval of the tentative map.

C. Supplemental Improvements-Reimbursement Agreements.

1. The subdivider of a subdivision for which a final tract map or final parcel map is required may be required to install improvements for the benefit of the subdivision which may contain supplemental size, capacity or number for the benefit of property not within the subdivision as a condition precedent to the approval of a tentative subdivision map and thereafter to dedicate such improvements to the public.

2. In the event such supplemental improvements are required by the commission as authorized in this subsection, the city may enter into an agreement with the subdivider to reimburse the subdivider, upon collection of moneys from owners of other property benefited thereby and within a specified time period, for that portion of the cost of such improvements equal to the difference between the amount it would have cost the subdivider to install such improvements to serve the subdivision only and the actual cost of such improvements.

3. In order to pay the costs as required by the reimbursement agreement, the city may:

a. Collect from other persons, including public agencies, using such improvements for the benefit of real property not within the subdivision, a reasonable charge for such use;

b. Contribute to the subdivider that part of the cost of the improvements that is attributable to the benefit of real property outside the subdivision and levy a charge upon the real property benefited to reimburse the city for such cost, together with interest thereon, if any, paid to the subdivider;

c. Establish and maintain local benefit districts for the levy and collection of such charge or costs from the property benefited.

D. Drainage Facilities-Payment of Fees Required. Prior to filing any final map or parcel map, the subdivider shall pay or cause to be paid any fees for defraying the actual or estimated costs of constructing planned drainage facilities for the removal of surface and stormwaters from local and neighborhood drainage areas pursuant to drainage plans adopted by the council therefor in accordance with Article 5 of Chapter 4 of Division 2 of Title 7 of the California Government Code (Section 66483 et seq.).

E. Bridge Crossings and Major Thoroughfares.

1. Prior to filing any final tract or parcel map or issuance of a building permit, fees may be assessed and collected pursuant to Section 66484 of the California Government Code for the purpose of defraying the actual or estimated costs of constructing bridge crossings or major thoroughfares identified in the transportation or flood control provisions of the circulation element of the city's general plan.

2. In order for such fees to be assessed and collected, the following requirements must be met:

a. The bridge or thoroughfares for which costs are to be assessed are identified in the transportation or flood control provisions of the circulation element of the city's general plan. The primary purpose of the major thoroughfares is to carry through traffic and provide a network connecting to the state highway system.

b. A public hearing pursuant to Government Code Section 66484(a)(2) and (3) shall be held by the council for each area benefited, and the boundaries of each such area, costs, and method of fee apportionment shall be set forth in a resolution to be adopted by the council.

c. Payment of fees shall not be required unless the major thoroughfares are in addition to, or a reconstruction of, any existing major thoroughfares serving the area at the time of the adoption of the boundaries of the area of benefit.

d. Payment of fees shall not be required unless the planned bridge facility is an original bridge serving the area or an addition to any existing bridge facility serving the area at the time of the adoption of the boundaries of the area of benefit. The fees shall not be expended to reimburse the cost of existing bridge facility construction.

e. The city clerk shall receive written protests and endorse on each protest the date and time it was filed.

i. No protest received after the time fixed for the public hearing shall be timely;

ii. If a written protest is filed by owners for more than one-half of area of the property to be benefited by the improvement, and sufficient protests are not withdrawn so as to reduce the area represented to less than one-half of that to be benefited then the proposed proceedings shall be abandoned, and the council shall not, for one year from the filing of that written protest, commence or carry on any proceedings for the same improvement or acquisition under the provisions of this section.

iii. Any protests may be withdrawn by the owner protesting, in writing, at any time prior to the conclusion of a public hearing held pursuant to the subsection (E)(2)(b) of this section.

iv. If any majority protest is directed against only a portion of the improvement then all further proceedings under the provisions of this section to construct that portion of the improvement so protested against shall be barred for a period of one year, but the council may commence new proceedings not including any part of the improvement or acquisition so protested against. Nothing in this section prohibits the council, within that one-year period, from commencing and carrying on new proceedings for construction of a portion of the improvement so protested against if it finds, by the affirmative vote of four-fifths of its members, that the owners of more than one-half of the area of the property to be benefited are in favor of going forward with the portion of the improvement or acquisition.

3. Fees paid pursuant to this section shall be deposited in a planned bridge facility or major thoroughfare fund. A fund shall be established for each planned bridge facility project or each planned major thoroughfare project. If the benefit area is one in which more than one bridge is required to be constructed, a fund may be so established covering all of the bridge projects in the benefit area. Money in the fund shall be expended solely for the construction or reimbursement for construction of the improvement serving the area to be benefited and from which the fees comprising the fund were collected, or to reimburse the city for the cost of constructing the improvement.

4. Nothing in this section prohibits the acceptance of considerations in lieu of the payment of fees.

(Ord. 04-02-673 § 1, 2004; Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

A. Plans and specifications, including profiles where required by the city engineer, of all improvements required under the provisions of this title, as well as other improvements proposed to be installed and constructed by the subdivider in, over, or under any street or right-of-way, easement, lot or parcel of land where improvements are required or proposed, shall, along with an estimated plan check fee, be filed with the city engineer. The city shall not be obligated to accept public improvements shown on any such plan or specification constructed before the plans and specifications therefor have been approved by the city engineer.

B. If all detailed plans and specifications for improvements are not filed with the city engineer at the time of filing the final parcel map, certificate of compliance, or final tract map, there shall be included in the completion agreement a promise to file same within a specified reasonable time thereafter, and the faithful performance bond shall include a guarantee that the remaining plans and specifications will be prepared in accordance with the requirements of the city engineer and filed with him.

C. In all cases where topography controls the design, all detailed plans, specifications and profiles of improvements required must be submitted at the time of the filing of the final parcel map, certificate of compliance or final tract map.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

A. Improvements required in a subdivision for which a parcel map is required shall be installed as provided in subsection A of Section 17.32.060.

B. The improvements which the advisory agency may require and which, where so required, the subdivider shall make, or agree to make, prior to acceptance and approval of a final parcel map, shall be those set forth in subsection D of this section.

C. The advisory agency, in the determination to require or not require any such improvements, shall consider the following factors:

1. Whether the installation of any of such improvements would be premature in relation to the public needs of the present and the immediate future;

2. Whether the omission of all or any part of such improvements would be materially detrimental to the public welfare, safety, health or convenience, or to the orderly implementation of the general plan;

3. Whether the omission of all or any part of such improvements would be injurious to property or improvements in the area;

4. The extent to which the improvements are appropriate to fulfill public needs;

5. The extent to which the community may need protection against potentially adverse effects of the proposed use or possible use.

D. The following improvements or any of them may be required by the advisory agency and if so required, shall be furnished at the subdivider's expense:

1. Grading, curbs and gutters, drainage and drainage structures necessary to the proper use and drainage of streets, highways, alleys and ways and to the public safety;

2. Street, highways, alleys and ways;

3. Sidewalks;

4. Sanitary sewer facilities and separate connections for each parcel created. Unless an exception has been granted as provided in Section 17.32.060(B)(4), dry sewer lines shall be installed where an outfall sewer is not reasonably available;

5. Water system with mains of sufficient size and having a sufficient number of outlets to furnish adequate domestic water supply for each parcel created and to provide adequate fire protection to meet local neighborhood needs; each lot created shall be provided with a minimum of one service outlet;

6. Services from public utilities, including cable television, and services from sanitary sewers available to each lot and in such manner as will avoid the necessity for disturbing the street pavement, gutter, culvert and curb when service connections are made; provided, however, as to cable television service, that the requirement for installation of such service to any industrial tract may be waived if, based upon a waiver requested by a subdivider supported with proof of satisfaction of the following conditions: the planning commission finds that the omission of such requirement will not create a break in cable television service (to properties in the vicinity of the tract map) or, even if such omission would result in a break in cable television service, the closest available connection to existing cable television facilities is more than five hundred feet from the closest point in the tract map to the point of such connection (measured along existing or proposed utility easement);

7. Street name signs;

8. A chain-link fence between any subdivision and the right-of-way line of any drainage facility, which shall be approved by the city;

9. Street lighting;

10. Walls, fences and landscaping as required by ordinance, city standard, or the advisory agency.

11. Any other improvements determined by the advisory agency to be needed for public health or safety or prerequisite to orderly development of the surrounding area.

E. The provisions of subsections C and D of Section 17.32.060 shall apply to subdivisions for which a final parcel map is required.

F. Requirements for the construction of such offsite and onsite improvements shall be noticed by certificate on the final parcel map, on the instrument evidencing the waiver of such parcel map, or by separate instrument and shall be recorded on, concurrently with, or prior to the final parcel map or instrument of waiver of a parcel map being filed for record. Fulfillment of such construction requirements shall not be required until such time as a permit or other grant of approval for development of the parcel is issued or until such time as the construction of such improvements is required pursuant to an agreement between the subdivider and the city, except that in the absence of such an agreement, the advisory agency may require fulfillment of such construction requirements within a reasonable time following approval of the parcel map and prior to the issuance of a permit or other grant of approval for the development of a parcel upon a finding that fulfillment of the construction requirements is necessary for reasons of:

1. The public health and safety; or

2. The required construction is a necessary prerequisite to the orderly development of the surrounding area.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

Prior to the time of filing of the notice of completion and acceptance of sewers within any subdivision, the subdivider shall file with the city engineer a reproducible sepia film and one set of blue line prints of the record sewer plans approved and signed by an engineer. Record plans shall show the location of all wye branches or house laterals.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)

A. At the time of making the survey for the final tract or parcel map, the subdivider's engineer or surveyor shall set sufficient durable monuments to conform with the standards described in Section 8771 of the Business and Professions Code so that another engineer or surveyor may readily retrace the survey.

B. Such engineer or surveyor shall set monuments as follows:

1. Set city standard monuments and encasements at all intersections of street centerlines, beginning and ending of all curves on streets within the subdivision and at the intersection of the centerline of the streets and the subdivision boundary. On all curved streets, a sufficient number of monuments shall be set so that connecting chords shall be wholly within the street roadway between curbing. The engineer or surveyor shall measure the vertical elevation based upon National Geodetic Survey data for each city standard monument set and shall provide a record of this data to the city engineer;

2. Set two inch iron pipe twenty-four inches long, filled with concrete and properly tagged, or with a two-inch by two-inch by twelve-inch redwood stake driven into the center and properly tagged or equal as approved by the city engineer, at all angle points and beginning and ending of all curves on the exterior boundary of the subdivision. All boundary monuments shall be in place prior to recordation of the map. The city engineer may, by a field survey, satisfy himself that all monuments actually exist and that their positions are correctly shown. Depth of boundary monuments shall be not less than six inches or more than thirty inches.

3. Set two-inch by two-inch by twelve-inch redwood stakes with tag, iron rod with cap or iron pipe with cap and properly tagged at all angle points and beginning and ending of all curves on the boundary of each lot, which angle point is not covered in subsections 1 or 2 above;

4. When any of the above-described boundary points fall in a concrete sidewalk, curb, wall, coping, etc., such points shall be marked with a concrete nail and tag;

5. All monuments in subsections 1 and 2 above shall be so set as to insure an unobstructed sight between adjacent monuments, whenever feasible, and in no case shall the distance between monuments exceed one thousand feet, unless prior approval is obtained from the city engineer;

6. All monuments shall be permanently marked with the certificate number of the engineer or surveyor setting it, preceded by the letters "R.C.E." or "L.S." respectively, as the case may be;

7. The character, type and position of all monuments and encasements shall be noted on the final map. If a monument is replaced, indicate type and condition of monument found and the date of replacement;

8. A traverse of the boundaries of the map and of all the lots and blocks must close within a limit of error not in excess of one foot in twenty thousand feet;

9. All distances must be expressed on the map to the nearest hundredth of a foot;

10. Any monuments or stakes disturbed by the improvements shall be reset. Where no streets are to be improved, the subdivider shall post a faithful performance bond to guarantee the setting of all the above stakes and monuments.

(Ord. 90-13-575 § 1(part), 1990)