Port Orchard council adopts 27% average increase to transportation impact fees

Port Orchard — The City Council voted to adopt an ordinance amending the city’s transportation impact fee rate schedule on July 8, approving higher fees that staff said reflect rising project costs and newly identified capital projects.

City staff recommended the update after a staff report from Nick Bond. “In 2015, the City of Port Orchard adopted an impact fee ordinance and established traffic impact fees for the first time,” Bond told the council, and he noted the rates were last updated in February 2021. Bond said the city should re-evaluate fees every three to four years and that cost estimates and new projects have raised the city’s share of growth-related project costs.

Under the council’s preferred alternative, the proposed peak PM trip rate is $7,977, which Bond said would yield a fee of $7,498 for a single-family dwelling. Bond reported the current peak PM trip rate of $6,288.31 and a current single-family fee of $6,225.43, meaning the adopted rate represents an increase of roughly 20–27 percent depending on the land-use category. The draft ordinance sets an effective date of Monday, July 28, 2025, to give the permit center time to implement the new fee structure.

Why it matters: City staff and several council members said the increase is needed to keep the city’s growth-paying share of transportation improvements and to avoid delaying projects. Council members debated the tradeoffs between affordability and infrastructure funding, with several saying they dislike higher fees but will approve them to prevent deferred capital work.

Council discussion highlighted how the project list and alternatives influenced the final rate. Bond and councilors explained that the council previously reviewed alternatives (labeled A, B and C), that members selected projects to add to the preferred list, and that adding projects increased the calculated fee. Bond also noted a CPI adjustment was codified in the impact-fee chapter in 2021 so fees will rise year-to-year going forward.

Members of the public and two written commenters opposed the increase. Bond said the city had received two emailed comments that day opposing the increase, from Robert McGee and the Kitsap Home Builders Association. Council members asked questions about which projects the fees will support; Bond pointed to the project list in the study where specific projects — including separated parallel trails (nonmotorized pathways) and road widenings — are identified as eligible for impact-fee funding.

Formal action: A motion to adopt the ordinance amending the city’s transportation impact fee rate schedule carried; the council recorded one nay and the ordinance was approved. The ordinance includes the new fee schedule and the July 28, 2025 effective date. The vote tally was recorded as one dissenting vote; the transcript does not identify which councilor cast the lone nay.

What’s next: Staff will implement the new fee schedule through the permit center before the ordinance’s effective date. Councilors and staff said the city will continue to monitor construction costs and revisit the fee schedule on the recommended three- to four-year cadence.

Ending: The council took no other immediate action tied directly to the fee revenues at the July 8 meeting; Bond and staff will administer the change and track the approved project list as funds are collected.