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Decatur staff presents plan to cut roadway impact fees; residential rate recommended to fall to 40%
Summary
City staff presented a first reading of an impact-fees ordinance that keeps water and wastewater fees unchanged, recommends cutting many roadway fees (residential from 100% to 40%, institutional to 0%) and introduces impact-fee credits; council will consider action at a later meeting.
City staff on March 9 presented a first reading of a proposed amendment to the city's impact-fee ordinance that would scale back several roadway impact fees after benchmarking and a Capital Improvements Advisory Committee recommendation.
The proposed ordinance (new Ordinance 2026-0312) leaves water and wastewater impact fees unchanged but would reduce roadway-impact charges in many categories. According to staff, the Capital Improvements Advisory Committee recommended lowering the residential roadway fee from 100% of the calculated maximum to 40% and reducing institutional land-use percentages (including churches and schools) from 50% to 0%. The committee also recommended dropping many other roadway categories from 50% to 25%.
Nate, a city staff presenter, said Decatur's total fee stack for a single-family detached home reached about $27,005.35 under the current schedule; with the CIAC recommendation applied to roadway charges the staff example brought the total closer to $20,000 per single-family unit. Wayne of Public Works showed project-specific examples in the packet, saying an office building example would see roughly a $150,000 reduction under the proposed roadway-percentage changes.
"The Capital Improvements Advisory Committee unanimously voted to recommend leave water and waste water alone where they're at and lower a roadway in certain categories," Nate said, summarizing the committee's position and the benchmarking work they asked staff and the city's engineers to produce.
Staff emphasized that Decatur's comparatively large roadway capital improvement plan drives higher roadway fees versus peer cities, and they framed the adjustments as an attempt to balance development paying its share with remaining competitive. Staff also noted tools that will be available to reduce impact-fee burdens, including an impact-fee credit program based on actual construction of CIP projects and a residential infill reimbursement policy that offers up to $25,000 in reimbursement once an eligible project is completed.
Councilmembers asked clarifying questions about the scale of reductions, differing packet versions and how categories (industrial, recreational, institutional) are affected. Nate acknowledged a packet clerical discrepancy and provided a corrected loose-leaf summary at the dais.
This item was taken as a first reading; staff said any adopted fees would take effect April 1 and that council will consider formal action at a future meeting.
