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. Specifically, those improvements that are needed to accommodate increasing vehicle traffic and transit ridership, as well as bike and pedestrian trips generated by new land development.

The fee that a developer pays varies by the "fee district" that a development is located in. Sacramento County currently has seven fee districts. The fee district boundaries are being revised in the SCTDF Program update 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 in accordance with the current 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 existing fee program were significantly underestimated relative to today's costs and provided inadequate funding for the construction of projects currently included in the program. 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. The on-going, more comprehensive update to the current SCTDF fee is necessary for the following reasons:

• The incorporations of three new Cities (Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, and Rancho Cordova) affect the boundaries and funding requirements for three fee districts.
• The existing project list does 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 and to maintain effective circulation.
• The data collected for the current fee program is significantly out of date.

When updating the SCTDF, the County will look at the following elements:

• New 25-year (2032) forecasts of development.
• Estimation of roadway volumes and transit ridership for 2032.
• Defining improvement needs for local roadways, transit, bicycle and pedestrians.
• Execute a Nexus analysis that will 1) identify existing deficiencies and 2) define new development's "fair share" contribution to the capital improvements based on who will use the facilities.

The report includes the listing of impacted projects and fee calculations

Revised Administration Costs

The fee rates in the November 2008 report includes an estimated administration cost for updating/maintaining the fee program. As discussed on page 44 of that report, the administration cost is somewhat higher than the average annual costs that the County has incurred over the last 5 years. The County has since revisited that cost and determined that it would not be sufficient to cover the cost to administer the new fee program.

The new fee program is more comprehensive and complex than the current fee program. The current fee program had not been updated in a long time while the new fee program will have updated more often - including annual adjustments to reflect changes in construction cost, updates when financing plans for new districts are implemented, and more frequent comprehensive updates. For these reasons, the County has increased the administration cost to two percent of the cost of the overall fee program. The 2 percent administration cost is $186 per dwelling unit equivalent (DUE), which is an increase of $153 per DUE from the $33 per DUE shown in the July 2007 report.

Technical Analysis

An analysis of future transportation facility needs is being conducted based on a travel demand model and development forecasts prepared by the Sacramento Council of Governments (SACOG). Improvements to meet those needs will be identified in an updated project list. Fee district boundaries are being revised to reflect the incorporations of new cities. Construction cost estimates for the new/expanded facilities are being estimated. The travel demand model will be used to estimate the usage of each roadway improvements by trips from each fee district. The potential funding from sources other than the SCTDF Program is being determined. This effort will result in updated fees per unit of development (i.e. per dwelling unit or per square foot of building) in each fee district.

Project Advisory Group (PAG)

Important components of the update process are the inclusion and participation of key County-wide stakeholders. The County has formed a Project Advisory Group (PAG) that will meet several times during the course of the update process to provide valuable input and assist in the dissemination of project information. PAG members include elected officials, transportation and disability advocates and representatives from the County, Building Industry Association, Sacramento Area Council of Governments, Sacramento Regional Transit District, and others.

Current Schedule

• December 2008
  We will be requesting adoption of the fee update including Capital Improvement Program by the Board on December 9, 2008, at 2:00 p.m. We will also introduce the Ordinance amending Chapter 16.87 of the Sacramento County Code.
  
  We will waive the full reading of the Ordinance and continue the item to December 16, 2008, for adoption. The new fees will go into effect sixty (60) calendar days from adoption of the Ordinance.

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

Interested in receiving project updates? Email your mailing/email address to:

Veronica Carloni, Project Manager Community Outreach
veronica.carloni@hdrinc.com