Westminster council backs work to develop tiered roadway improvement fee, aims to shift costs toward high-traffic businesses

Westminster city staff on Monday presented a proposal to reshape the city’s roadway improvement fee, recommending a $2 monthly increase for residential accounts and a new tiered schedule for commercial properties intended to shift more of the cost burden to high-traffic retail and service businesses.

The proposal would raise the residential fee from $6 to $8 per water meter and create three nonresidential tiers — retail superstore, retail high-traffic and retail moderate-traffic — plus an “other commercial” category. Staff said the change would add about $4 million in revenue and reduce the city’s annual streets funding gap from roughly $9 million to about $5 million.

Why it matters: Westminster identified roughly $26 million in annual needs for pavement, curb and gutter, traffic-calming and signal infrastructure. City staff say the current funding sources — sales and use tax, external grants and the existing roadway fee — leave an on-going shortfall; the fee rewrite is intended to align charges with how much traffic different land uses generate.

City engineer and staff presentation: City engineering staff modeled traffic-generation by land use and proposed caps to avoid very large bills for a small number of businesses. The presenter summarized the recommendation: “we're recommending going to, raising it by $2 a month for the residential side to $8,” and said the residential revenue would rise from about $3.7 million to roughly $5.0 million annually under the proposal.

Council discussion and next steps: Councilors praised the tiered approach as a more proportional way to allocate road costs. Several members said they supported outreach to businesses and residents before any ordinance is introduced. One councilor urged an “indexed” or inflation-adjusted mechanism to avoid repeating large periodic increases, while others cautioned against automatic escalators without annual review.

Staff recommended drafting ordinance language this summer, conducting stakeholder outreach and aiming for implementation about a year after council direction to allow internal systems and billing to be built. Staff also flagged options for automatic adjustments and said those could be included in the ordinance if council desires.

Quote: Councilor Camilla said, “I think this makes so much sense,” expressing support for the tiered structure and the goal of shifting more of the burden to high-traffic retailers.

What council directed: Councilors authorized staff to move forward with stakeholder engagement on the proposed fee structure and return with refined ordinance language and outreach materials. No formal roll-call vote was taken; city staff characterized the outcome as council direction to proceed with public engagement and ordinance drafting.

What remains unresolved: Staff emphasized that the fee alone will not close the streets funding gap. Council members asked staff to include additional data in outreach — including trip counts and how specific delivery and service providers are accounted for — and to report back on options for indexing or caps before a final ordinance is introduced.

Ending: Staff will meet stakeholders and return to council with a draft ordinance, recommended inflation/indexing language and a timeline for implementation.