Tampa council schedules more hearings after second workshop on multimodal impact fees

Tampa City Council on Friday held a second publicly noticed workshop on the city's multimodal transportation impact fee, during which staff and outside consultants described a demonstrated-needs study and preliminary fee calculations and council members scheduled follow-up briefings and ordinance hearings.

Emma Gregory, the city's senior assistant city attorney, told the council that "Section 163.31801, Florida Statutes, authorizes local governments to impose impact fees," and summarized the statutory limits and the extraordinary-circumstances pathway that would be required to raise fees by more than 50 percent. Consultant Catherine Tellez said the fee schedule has not been changed since 1989 and that updated trip-generation rates, construction-cost escalation and projected growth produce a larger calculated 'ceiling' for many land uses across the city's six fee districts.

At the workshop, staff framed the issue as technical and legal: the study updates trip generation, trip length and capital-cost…