Suburban Gridlock by Robert Cervero

Author:Robert Cervero [Cervero, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351487658
Google: 9tszDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 5886889
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1986-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Traffic Impact Fees

A more common legislative approach to suburban traffic management has been the exaction of impact fees from developers for financing areawide roadway improvements. Rather than assessing individual landowners based on their real property valuations, these ordinances collect monies according to how much traffic a future development will likely generate. Two key features of traffic impact ordinances—the collection of fees only from future developers and the emphasis on off-site improvements—have been the most controversial. Unlike trip reduction ordinances, moreover, impact fees are usually imposed before any project is actually built. In most instances, payment of exactions is a precondition to receiving various discretionary permits, such as site plan approval, conditional negative declarations, certificates of occupancy, special use privileges, and building permits.

By far, the largest number of traffic impact ordinances have been enacted in Southern California, although they can be found in Florida, New Jersey, Colorado, and around the Washington metropolitan area as well. Among the more significant programs established to date have been the following.

WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA. Fairfax County plans to impose a $2.65 per square foot fee on new developments to finance sorely needed highway improvements at the intersection of Route 50 and Interstate 66, the location of a future county government center and a 620-acre office-hotel complex.50 Requests for rezoning and subdivision approval within the county must also include proffers from the developer that list infrastructural improvements he or she intends to make.51 One Fairfax County developer has agreed to pay $20 million toward construction of a cross-county highway and new interchange. Across the Potomac in Montgomery County, Maryland, the impetus for creating an “Impact Fee District” has come from the business community itself. Private developers have proposed a program that would raise nearly $40 million over a 20-year period to match the terms of bonds for financing necessary transportation improvements in a rapidly growing portion of the county.52 In return, builders would have a green light for constructing offices and apartments.

STATE OF FLORIDA. Florida has pioneered the development of impact fee legislation at the state level. In May 1985, Florida’s legislature passed a breakthrough state plan and growth management bill that mandates up-front, earmarked funding for requisite new roads in addition to expanded sewer and water facilities before new developments are approved. Given Florida’s intense growth pressures, state officials found it necessary to legislate impact fees not only to help cover a $30 million backlog in infrastructure bills, but also to make it exceedingly costly to pursue leapfrog development or to overbuild the state’s fragile coastline and barrier islands.53 At the local level, moreover, Palm Beach and Broward Counties, both part of greater Miami, have been assessing road impact fees since 1981, although funds in both places are limited to improving existing roads rather than expanding networks or filling in missing links.54

SAN DIEGO COUNTY. The county requires developers to pay fees as a precondition to subdivision approval, with a portion of all proceeds going to the local road improvement funds in the subregional planning area surrounding the subdivision.

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