Sacramento County Transportation Development Fee (SCTDF)

What is the Sacramento County Transportation Development Fee?

The purpose of the SCTDF Program is to fund the construction of improvements to roadway, transit, bicycle and pedestrian facilities needed to accommodate travel demand generated by new land development in the unincorporated portion of Sacramento County.

The fee that a developer pays varies by the "fee district" that a development is located in. Sacramento County currently has six fee districts. The fee district boundaries have been revised to reflect the incorporations of new cities.

Project Description/Background

On August 31, 1988, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors adopted a countywide transportation development fee program for roadway and transit in accordance with the General Plan. In 1993, the County updated the roadway portion of the original SCTDF. Although the region has changed significantly since 1993, there had been no subsequent update during the intervening 13 years. Cost estimates for improvements in the 1993 fee program were significantly underestimated and would provide inadequate funding for the construction of those projects. Therefore, an interim fee update based on revised construction costs estimates for the current project list was adopted by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in March 2006.

A comprehensive update of the SCTDF was conducted and approved by the Board of Supervisors in December 2008 to reflect the following considerations:

• The incorporations of three new Cities (Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cordova) affected the fee district boundaries and funding requirements.
• The previous SCTDF project list did not include critical roadway, transit, bicycle, and pedestrian infrastructure improvements that are necessary to meet the long-range demands of new development within the unincorporated County.
• The land use data and project list needed updating.

The December 2008 SCTDF fee schedule was to be gradually phased-in with 1/3 of the full fee for the first year (ending March 2010) with an annual 1/3 incremental increase and a full fee to be implemented beginning March 2011. At the March 2009 SCTDF annual review with the Board of Supervisors it was decided to postpone the annual 1/3 incremental increase of the SCTDF fee keeping the fee at the initial 1/3 full fee rate until the next annual review in March 2011. Maintaining the initial 1/3 full fee rather than imposing a 2/3 full fee was intended to be less burdensome to potential development within the unincorporated County during this economic downturn.

The SCTDF was however revised in March 2010 to reflect other various fee adjustments, including the Caltrans construction cost index adjustment to reflect trending variations of related projects over the previous three years.

The report was updated and approved by the Board of Supervisors on March 23, 2010 and includes the listing of impacted projects and fee calculations.

For additional background information regarding this update, visit Agenda item #51 at the March 23, 2010 Board Agenda.

Current Schedule

• March 2011
  We will report to the Board of Supervisors with recommendations regarding the scheduled 1/3 fee increase, construction cost index adjustments and any other relevant matters concerning the SCTDF fee implementation.
  

Contact Information

Should you have any questions or would like more information regarding the Transportation Development Fee Update, please contact:

Dave Franke, Chief
County of Sacramento
916-876-6488
franked@saccounty.net