Council hears impact-fee restudy; CIAC recommends adopting 50% of calculated maximums

City Manager Jared Atkinson convened a work session presentation on the city’s impact-fee restudy on behalf of staff and the consultant team, which laid out how the city calculated new maximum fees for roadway impacts and the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee’s recommendation to adopt 50% of those maximums.

"So what are they? They are 1 time fees for new development," City Engineer John Turpin told the council, summarizing the statutory basis for impact fees and the four categories Texas municipalities may collect: water, wastewater, roadway and drainage. Turpin said Lubbock’s study followed the 10-year planning window set out in Chapter 395 of the Texas Local Government Code.

The restudy, presented in greater detail by consultant Brandon Forsyth, kept the city’s service-area boundaries, updated land-use assumptions using Plan Lubbock 2040 parcel data and recent annexations, and reduced the residential growth rate used for projections from 2.5% in the prior study to 2.2% based on updated data and staff review. Forsyth said the team converted anticipated dwelling units and nonresidential square footage into vehicle-mile demand over the 10-year window and priced the roadway capacity plan (RCP) projects in each service area to produce a recoverable-cost numerator for the maximum-fee calculation.

Turpin told council that impact-fee accounts have collected roughly $14,000,000 citywide through May 31, 2025, with just over $5,000,000 used to date and about $9,000,000 remaining. He and Forsyth described several specific uses of fee revenue to date: an overage on Upland Avenue was covered with impact fees; about $1,000,000 of fees went to East 19th Street; and $1,274,000 was applied to Quaker Avenue from 146 to Woodrow Road. Turpin said impact fees “have been leveraged to construct approximately 5 times the value of construction versus the fees utilized.”

Forsyth said recoverable costs per service area vary widely. In Lubbock’s higher-cost zones, single-family impact-fee increases calculated by the consultant ranged roughly from $300 to just over $1,300 per permit in the city’s roadway-only framework; he noted that other Texas cities sometimes include water and wastewater in their fee schedules. Forsyth also showed examples translating vehicle-mile rates into fees for typical land uses (coffee shop, office, retail, industrial) and noted a typical policy practice of applying a 50% credit under Chapter 395 to reduce recoverable costs for the fee calculation.

Turpin summarized the Capital Improvement Advisory Committee (CIAC) recommendation: follow prior council precedent and adopt 50% of the consultant-calculated maximums for service areas where fees are applicable; designate service areas A, G and H as no-fee zones; and pursue a committee onboarding policy so CIAC members are better prepared for future technical reviews. He also listed candidate projects that may be funded with impact fees, including Avenue P (146 to the Lubbock County line) and 100th and 14th Street (Upland to Alcove Avenue).

Council and staff agreed on next steps and a schedule of public hearings and readings: a public hearing on the land-use assumptions and the roadway capacity plan is set for July 8 (action item), a public hearing on changes to the impact-fee ordinance and a first reading would be July 22, and a second reading is scheduled for Aug. 12 if council wishes to proceed.

Public commenters addressed the policy trade-offs during the meeting’s public-comment period. Joshua Shankles, who identified himself as a resident, argued in favor of keeping impact fees, saying they prevent developers from “externaliz[ing] their cost of doing business to the taxpayers” and warning against reducing fees to address short-term budget pressures.

Why this matters: impact fees shift upfront infrastructure costs for growth to developers and can materially affect the cost of building on the urban fringe. The restudy identifies larger recoverable costs driven by inflation and annexations and proposes council consider adopting a fee schedule that CIAC says balances recoverable cost and policy choices.

Looking ahead: council will take the report and land-use assumptions up for public hearing on July 8, with subsequent ordinance hearings on July 22 (first reading) and Aug. 12 (second reading) if the council chooses to change the current fee schedule.