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Belgrade council reviews proposed street-fee overhaul; staff to return with revised options
Summary
At a council workshop, consultant Ryan Grama presented a trip-based street-fee methodology tied to ITE trip-generation and a $1.6 million street fund target; the council expressed concern about steep commercial increases, asked staff for ramp-up and cap options, and directed staff to return with revised proposals for a July decision.
Ryan Grama, senior consultant at AE2S, presented a proposed overhaul of Belgrade's street-fee methodology at a city-council workshop, saying the study uses ITE trip-generation data to allocate operation-and-maintenance (O&M) and capital costs and that the street fund faces roughly a $1,600,000 annual requirement for fiscal 2027.
The proposal's baseline recommendation, Grama said, is to levy the fee to cover O&M only in FY27 while the city explores options to smooth capital funding. "On the single family residential, it'd be about $205," Grama said when describing the O&M-only example; he said a multifamily unit could be about $173 per unit on an O&M basis and noted median commercial properties in the analysis would face roughly $1,600 per year under the combined O&M-and-capital example.
The nut of the debate was how to translate that unit-cost approach into rates the city can defend without imposing disproportionate one-year increases on commercial or industrial property owners. Greg Tran, assistant city manager, and the City Manager told the council the apparent spike in capital spending in 2028 stems from how projects are currently programmed in the CIP and that bond counsel is being consulted about whether and how an assessment could support debt to smooth capital costs.
Council members pressed several practical concerns. Some urged a gradual ramp-up or a blended commercial/industrial class so distribution warehouses and parcel hubs do not face the same per-square-foot rate as smaller Main Street businesses. "We have asked for commercial businesses to move in for 20 years," one council member said, warning the city risks driving small businesses to neighboring Bozeman if increases are too large. Another council member suggested examining a cap like a nearby city's 10,000-square-foot maximum used to limit very large-account liabilities.
Several members also asked staff to explore transferring some of the tourism burden to other revenue sources (rental-car fees or a sales tax on rental cars was suggested as an example by one councilor) and to reconcile the parcel and unit counts with utility-billing records. Grama told the council he relied on city GIS and planning shapefiles merged with state assessor square-footage data for the current model and offered to reconcile billing accounts on request.
The council did not take a formal vote. The City Manager said staff would incorporate the feedback and return with revised options and supporting numbers. "I will work with Greg and Ryan to take your feedback and try to present something," the City Manager said. Staff indicated they expect to return with proposals that could be considered for final action at the council's first meeting in July.
What happens next: staff will produce alternative rate schedules that explore (a) a ramp-up or blended classification to soften commercial spikes, (b) a cap on very large commercial/industrial accounts, and (c) modest residential increases that would reduce pressure on nonresidential rates. The council asked staff to provide reconciled parcel/utility counts and recent municipal construction-inflation figures to inform the final recommendation.
