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Mooresville staff propose UDO change to broaden payment-in-lieu options for transportation projects; finance says sidewalk fund created
Summary
Planning staff proposed an amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance to allow payment in lieu in more circumstances for transportation plans; commissioners pressed for clearer formulas, documentation and an internal fund to track payments; town finance said a separate sidewalk fund already exists.
Town planning staff asked commissioners to amend the Unified Development Ordinance on Sept. 10 to add circumstances under which a developer may pay a fee in lieu of constructing transportation facilities shown in the town’s high-level plans.
James Colley presented text amendment TA2025-06, saying the change would give the town flexibility when high-level plans (for example, multimodal or greenway plans) require improvements that become infeasible or duplicative on private parcels. “We want to have the flexibility and the ability to allow for construction of the best possible path to make it as usable and not lose any function,” Colley said.
Commissioners asked how the town will catalog and reserve funds received through payments in lieu. Chris Quinn, the town CFO, said staff set up a separate sidewalk fund during the town’s fund-transparency project and moved prior payments into that account. “So we’ll have that separate from all of our other funds,” Quinn said.
Commissioner DeWeese asked for assurance the town would earmark payments and avoid losing track of funds; Quinn said the town already maintains separate funds for restricted payments and that attainable-housing payments and other in-lieu funds have dedicated accounts when required.
Several commissioners asked staff to provide a clear formula for calculating a fee-in-lieu so applicants and the board can see the cost up front; Colley said staff require an engineer’s probable cost estimate now and are working on a fee schedule update that would include per-linear-foot or per-square-foot rates for sidewalks and similar facilities.
Colley also said the planning board recommended an additional sentence of language that would require payment-in-lieu for items listed as conditions of a conditional zoning to be determined and documented as a condition of zoning prior to approval. Commissioners requested a redline showing the planning-board language compared with staff’s proposed text so they could see the differences before voting.
Staff said option 1 in the meeting packet reflected the planning-board recommendation; commissioners noted the packet pages showed identical language for options 1 and 2 and asked staff to circulate an updated redline.
If adopted, the amendment would give the town more discretion to accept fees in lieu when the design, feasibility or cost makes on-site construction impractical. Commissioners directed staff to return with a redlined amendment, a proposed fee schedule formula and documentation procedures for tracking and restricting in-lieu funds.
