Vacaville staff outline proposed Development Impact Fee overhaul; transportation fee could rise roughly $11,000 per unit

Vacaville City staff and outside consultants presented a proposed update to the city’s Development Impact Fee (DIF) program at a public stakeholder meeting, describing structural changes to charge many fees by square foot and technical calculations that — if council adopted maximum levels — would raise transportation fees by about $11,000 per housing unit and push combined fee increases to roughly $20,000 per unit before parks are added.

City staff and Tayfun Rice Evans, a consultant with Economic & Planning Systems, stressed the numbers shown in the presentation are “maximum potential” fees produced by the nexus analysis and that council can reduce or phase-in final fees. Rice Evans said the technical work ties service standards, improvement lists and cost estimates together and noted major cost drivers since the prior study in 2022, including supply-chain disruptions, labor shortages and higher bid prices.

The proposal includes two major structural changes: moving more fee categories to a strictly per-square-foot basis (as state law requires in some areas) and creating a lower per-square-foot transportation fee for attached single-family housing based on trip-rate differences. Rice Evans said sewer and water fee calculations showed roughly 20% increases in the consultant’s estimates, transportation about 70% higher in the maximum model, and several other categories — including police and fire — approaching near-doubling at the…