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Councilists raise concerns over proposed transportation impact fees, citing high per-unit costs and equity for multifamily housing
Summary
Councilors questioned preliminary transportation impact-fee calculations presented in a recent work session that showed potentially large fees for new development, asked for more detail on right-of-way valuations, and discussed options including phased adoption, credits from resort tax or waivers for deed-restricted affordable units.
Council members and staff on Jan. 21 discussed a preliminary transportation impact-fee study and expressed concern that the draft numbers could significantly raise costs for new construction, particularly multifamily and affordable housing projects.
Council members said example calculations presented in the consultant’s preliminary results included an example single-family residence assessment near $9,000, which several councilors described as substantially higher than current comparable fees and potentially doubling existing assessments for single-family homes. Members noted transportation is commonly the highest municipal impact fee and said some of the draft methodology and project allocations appeared to concentrate costs on a limited number of major projects.
Councilors asked for more detail from the consultant on several points: how right-of-way acquisition values were derived (committee members cited three recent raw land comparables and a $39 per-square-foot comp used by the consultant), whether projects included in the major-road network could be expanded to include roads used as local bypasses (Colorado, Dakota and Skiles were mentioned), and how credits—such as resort-tax support for reconstruction projects—would lower net fees. Staff responded that the methodology mirrored prior fixture- and square-foot approaches used for existing fees and that adopting a fee below the maximum requires the city to identify alternative funding if it still intends to complete the projects the fee is intended to fund.
Councilors asked staff to consider policy options that could protect affordable housing, such as waiving or abating fees for deed-restricted affordable units, and to provide more transparent detail on cost drivers and assumptions, including the consultant’s land-value comps and the list of projects the fees would fund. Staff and council agreed to allow more time for review and to discuss the study further at a later work session; no ordinance or fee adoption occurred at the meeting.
