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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-13-12, Study update Impact Fee Advisory Committee memo community planning zoning subdivision review annexation historic preservation neighborhood planning urban design GIS CITY OF BOZEMAN DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Alfred M. Stiff Professional Building 20 East Olive Street P.O. Box 1230 Bozeman, Montana 59771-1230 phone 406-582-2260 fax 406-582-2263 planning@bozeman.net www.bozeman.net TO: IMPACT FEE ADVISORY COMMITTEE FROM: CHRIS SAUNDERS RE: UPDATES TO IMPACT FEE STUDIES PUBLIC HEARING DATE: SEPTEMBER 13, 2012 The IFAC met on August 16th with the consultant to receive their reports and conduct a public hearing on the reports. During the Committee discussion several questions were raised. After consideration of the issues the following information is provided. Water Impact Fee 1) Is redevelopment/infill charged the distribution portion of the impact fee? a. Sites not previously developed: The property that has not had water/sewer service during the time when impact fees were in place (March 26, 1996 to now). These should pay the distribution/collection charge as they are new demand and will require additional capacity to serve them. As the system is a whole, the funds can be legitimately used to extend the major items like the West Transmission Loop which will benefit them. b. Redevelopment/further development of sites which had service after March 26, 1996: These have paid for needed service capacity expansion in fees paid earlier, either impact or monthly. The calculations for impact fees do not require exacting precision and often must be generalized due to their future oriented nature. The City also acts to create additional capacity in its distribution and collection systems as part of the regular and on- going maintenance of the system, especially in the older areas of the City. These two factors together provide some flexibility in considering how to treat redevelopment projects. The City has adopted a standard for the provision of water rights with new development. Unlike impact fees, this is often met during the subdivision or site development process. If a project creates additional demand that meets or exceeds an additional acre-foot of water they have to mitigate this additional demand for service. In Bozeman an acre-foot generally provides for about 3 homes over the course of a year. To keep consistency and to allow for some incremental changes within the developed area the need to pay distribution/collection charges should be linked to this same kind of trigger. This recognizes the variability inherent in averaging and the incremental capacity improvements from maintenance work. If you don’t need an additional acre foot then no distribution/collection area fee. Costs would be charged for the additional dwellings or meter size per normal. c. Phased multi-building development: It would be inappropriate to charge each part of a multi-unit complex the full fee for the distribution/collection systems. Therefore, the costs will be prorated. Example: A site plan on 2 acres with ten duplexes is proposed. As each duplex comes in for building permit they would be charged 1/10th of the overall distribution/collection cost component for the project. This may be infill or Greenfield. Page 2 of 4 2) If so, what is the trigger for doing so? See explanation above. 3) How are public parks handled? The area of the city dedicated to public parks has been removed from the calculation for the future area served. This only applies to the distribution component. Development within the park will still directly pay the plant capacity costs attributable to the meter size installed. Sewer Impact Fee The same questions and answers that were asked for water also apply to sewer services. Fire Impact Fee 1) Are we currently at capacity to respond to service calls from our existing stations based on the number of calls? Conversation with the Fire Chief indicates that we are seeing instances of all three stations concurrently deployed on a more frequent basis. When all three stations are not concurrently deployed we have further capability to respond to calls. As Bozeman continues to grow we will be at capacity more and more often. We currently can handle the number of calls we are receiving on an average daily basis. This is a difficult question to answer because the type of call has to be considered. For instance, we can handle three EMS calls at the same time but only 1 significant structure fire at a time. Transportation Impact Fee 1) What is the maximum size of collector streets in the long range transportation plan? The maximum lane configuration for an urban collector street in the transportation plan is three vehicle lanes (including center turn lane) and two bike lanes. 2) Example calculation for intersections: James Nickleson looked at the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) and the Bozeman Transportation Plan to get some generic information on the capacity of various intersection control methods. These are standard reference works for traffic engineering in Bozeman The HCM is a very simplistic look at the capacity of intersections as the geometry of the intersection, the type of vehicles using the intersection, the amount of turns and the amount of traffic on the minor vs. major street all have significant impacts on intersection capacity. Based on the Highway Capacity Manual concept level information both a 2 way stop controlled and a 4 way stop controlled one lane intersection have a capacity of about 1,000 vehicles per hour to maintain a Level of Service of D. Level of Service D is just above failure. Level of Service C is the established standard for function in Bozeman. A lesser standard may be accepted if the intersection is already built to its maximum lane configuration. Again, based on the Highway Capacity Manual, a traffic signal on a single lane intersection with left hand turn bays can accommodate approximately 3,000 vehicles per hour to maintain a Level of Service of D. The Bozeman Transportation Plan provides a discussion of roundabouts and states that a single lane roundabout has a capacity of 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles per day. Based on an estimate of peak hour conditions this converts to 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles per hour. This at least provides a rough approximation of intersection capacity for these four scenarios. Actual analysis for impact fee funding eligibility will occur on a case by case basis to account for the peculiar characteristics of each intersection and the work proposed to occur. Brian Heaston looked at the traffic analysis for the intersection of Durston Road and N. 15th Avenue done in 2004 prior to signalization. Durston/15th Page 3 of 4 • Pre-improvement design capacity: o Major legs (Durston) – 2080 vehicles per hour o Minor legs (15th) – 352 vehicles per hour • Post-improvement design capacity: o Major legs – 1771 vehicles per hour o Minor legs – 480 vehicles per hour The intersection as a whole has less overall capacity as measured by total vehicles post- improvement because the major (Oak Street) legs became controlled which lessened the maximum number of cars that could go through in a given time period. Focusing the capacity analysis on the minor (North 15th Avenue) legs shows a 36% capacity increase. This is reasonable as the improvement was needed to add capacity to the minor legs as they were the ones with failing level of service. This example illustrates that capacity as measured by numbers of vehicles may be more effective for travel lanes; while level of service measured by delay and functionality may be a more effective measure for intersections. Intersections are the true limiting factor on most streets. A two lane road with continuous traffic flow of one vehicle every three seconds would carry 57,600 cars per day. This will not happen since the traveling public does not use transportation evenly throughout the day. It also won’t happen within an urban environment since the roadway would intersect with other streets and traffic flow must stop to enable traffic from the other street to cross. It is essential to properly match the measurement used to the type of work needed. Any design has a limited service life and reflects the expected growth in an area. If the growth pattern is different the work may provide service to a greater number of travelers than otherwise expected at the time of the design work. Impact Fee Study: The purpose of the impact fee study is to identify that portion of the cost of capacity expansion in the service system needed to serve new or more intensive users which is above and beyond the minimum allowed infrastructure. Another way of describing this is with the equation: Total Service Capital Required = Maintenance Capital + Minimum Standard Capital + System Capacity Expanding Capital Only the equation factor shown in bold, System Capacity Expanding Capital, can be included in the calculation to set the impact fee charge, and is reciprocally the only one of the three segments on which the collected impact fees can be spent. Other money has to pay for the remaining portions of capital need. Impact fees may not pay for any operational or maintenance expenses and all such charges are excluded. The impact fee studies separate out these elements to only include the System Capacity Expanding Capital in setting the costs. The fee studies do not alone determine the amount that will be collected as an impact fee. The studies set an upper maximum limit that can be legally defended. They do not determine the mix of funding options which the City may choose to use to collectively pay for the identified costs. This determination of mix of options is the responsibility of the City Commission. Discussion of that mix will be had with the Commission in the future. Process: The Impact Fee Advisory Committee held a public hearing on August 16th and will be continuing that public hearing on September 13th. At the August 16th hearing, Dwayne Guthrie of TischlerBise presented the four updated study drafts. The Committee will be able to receive any additional public testimony which is offered. Any written comments received by the Planning Department will also be made available to the Committee. After the close of the public comment portion the Committee can discuss the draft studies and ask questions of the staff and consultant. Depending on the amount of public comment and questions the public hearing can be continued to a subsequent Page 4 of 4 meeting to enable full discussion of the matter. At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee will need to make a motion and recommendation to the City Commission on the drafts. In order to focus discussion and help keep the minutes of the meeting clear, staff requests that each of the four drafts receive its own motion and vote. After the Committee has acted on the drafts, the public hearing will be scheduled and noticed for action by the City Commission.