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Contractors and cities press for locality protections in S.831’s congestion fees
Summary
Carolina’s AGC and Municipal Association support parts of S.831 but urged clarity that congestion mitigation fees collected in an area should be spent there, asked for municipal representation on County Transportation Committees, and raised unanswered questions about commercial-project fee calculations and fee administration.
Whitney Williams, director of government relations for Carolina’s AGC, told the committee she supports many provisions of Bill S.831 that aim to speed project delivery, including state assumption of NEPA, design-build options and public–private partnerships. But she said Section 10’s congestion mitigation fees raise unanswered questions.
"The bill stipulates that the department used the mitigation fees in the county in which they were collected. However, it does not require the money to be spent in that specific area to alleviate congestion," Williams said, and warned the bill as drafted could let money generated near one development be spent elsewhere in the county.
Williams also asked how commercial developments would be charged, since the bill ties commercial mitigation fees to traffic-impact studies that could produce widely varying fees, and asked how simultaneous permits for adjacent projects would be handled.
Erica Wright of the Municipal Association echoed concerns about fee allocation and focused on representation: she said current law allows legislative delegations to make the county council the CTC and that in six counties the county council fills the CTC role with no municipal members. Wright said that has left some cities effectively lobbying their own county rather than having a seat at the table.
"We are asking for fair representation of municipalities as required by law," Wright said, offering amendment language options: strike the subsection that makes the county the CTC; require a minimum number of municipal members; or, if a county makes the council the CTC, add at least two municipal representatives.
Wright also flagged operational confusion where cities issue building permits but the statute directs the county to remit mitigation fees to DOT, leaving unanswered whether city-collected fees would be remitted through the county or retained locally for municipal projects.
Senators asked staff for revenue projections on Section 10; a staff member said Fiscal Affairs is preparing an estimate and that a high-growth scenario could approach $100 million, but deferred to the official fiscal estimate.
Both witnesses said they favor keeping mitigation money local when possible and stressed the need to craft language that protects municipalities’ planning and access to funds.
The committee did not adopt changes at the hearing and asked staff to supply formal revenue estimates before the next meeting.
