Advisory committee recommends the 2025 roadway impact fee study update after questioning large increases in maximum fees

An advisory Boards and Commissions panel reviewed the City’s proposed 2025 Roadway Impact Fee Study update and voted to recommend the study to city council after extended questions about sharply higher maximum assessable fees.

Ben Plaid, who said he prepared the update, told the committee the study sets the ceiling for fees — “this is the ceiling,” he said — and that city council would decide what collection rate to adopt. Plaid said the update recalculates fees based on current project costs and growth assumptions; most maximum fees rose compared with the 2020 study, though the currently adopted collection rates remain below the new maxima.

Committee members pressed Plaid on why some ceilings more than doubled. Plaid attributed most of the increase to general construction-cost escalation and inflation since 2020, and pointed to at least one project where estimates rose substantially: a ramp project for the FM 45 frontage road that was conceptualized at roughly $10,000,000 in the prior study and is now estimated near $25,000,000 in current cost assumptions. Plaid said those…