Bend Developers Say Road Fees Too High

A new group, apparently of developers, made itself known to Bend city councilors Wednesday night, suggesting that lower city development fees would help to spur needed economic growth.

And that sparked a friendly but noteworthy exchange — debate, even — with Councilor Mark Capell, who noted what many have in recent years — that the city did not charge the fully authorized developer fees during the recent (and now missed by some) growth boom, thus putting itself behind the curve in building new roads or upgrading or even maintaining the ones we already have.

Land-use lawyer Tia Lewis told the council she speaking as a representative of a new group, the DURT Committee, which stands for ?Delay, Uncertainty, Regulation and Taxes.?

She spoke during a hearing on proposed changes to transportation system development charges, usually the most contentious of the three city SDCs (though the others, water and sewer, have had their own issues of late).

But the difference is that, while sewer and water projects also are paid for through rates, there are no road fees per se in Bend (though voters did snap a string of rejected transportation proposals by approving a bond measure last spring, for a fairly short list of specific projects).

The city is proposing a new SDC formula — the ?methodology? — that would allocate all of the costs of some road projects to growth, in areas where the current street system is not deficient, and the improvements are needed only to meet the needs of new projects — the quintessential ?growth paying its own way.?

?We want SDCs to go down,? Lewis said bluntly, as she tried to make the argument that developers actually were paying more than their own way, and that while they want good roads as much as anyone, there needs to be a discussion about how onerous those fees have become, and the projects — and jobs — they have prevented.

?We?d settle for a lower level of service for a period of time,? she said. ?I?d sit a few seconds longer at a stop light, in order to have more jobs and development in the community.?

The planners who help propose specific developer fees for different types of building projects seek to quantify growth in terms of the number of car trips a use will generate.

But to Lewis and the others in the ?DURT? group, it?s not that simple. They say there are ?different avenues? to reduce SDCs and promote responsible growth.

The current system, they say, is inequitable, and Lewis said they hope to convince the city to ?develop a dialogue? on the matter.

?There are businesses that don?t impact transportation, but pay huge fees,? Lewis said, such as a downtown convenience market that, in her view, prompts hardly anyone to get in their car

The main example she focused on was a long-discussed neighborhood supermarket for Bend?s eastside, at the corner of Reed Market Road — a troubled road due for widening in coming years — and 27th Street, which has seen its share of traffic and land use battles over the years.

Lewis said that?s an example of a store that actually would allow many people to driver a shorter distance to get their groceries — actually reducing vehicle miles per day by almost 1,900. And yet, she said, it would pay $600,000 in transportation SDCs alone.

?Under the current rate, we will not have a new supermarket in the next five years,? Lewis told the councilors, at which point Council Mark Capell told her that he agreed — to a point.

?But I have a concern,? he said. ?I think part of the hole the city got itself in four, five, six, seven years ago, was they weren?t collecting full (authorized) SDCs, on transportation and other areas.?

Capell said the stats on project costs show the city could charge such projects $8,000 per trip generated, but Bend only is charging about $4,500.

?In ballpark figures, we?re collecting half of the infrastructure costs we should be to keep ahead of the curve,? he said. ?Isn?t that already a half-price sale? I?m worried about getting farther behind the curve.?

And Capell noted that it?s ?also a development driver? if there are good roads, to spur economic development — and conversely, if the roads fall further behind, that also can hurt the same thing everyone is striving for.

Lewis defended her position, asking when it comes to the fee revenue, ?How much of that is for bike lanes, sidewalks, curbs, not related to street infrastructure? Another policy decision is how much we can fund on the back of economic development.?

Capell said those things ?are part of proper streets,? and Lewis replied that she was ?not saying they are not necessary.?

The land-use attorney said there are some items on Bend?s 20-year road project list that could be funded in ways other than growth-related transportation fees.

She also turned to the disparity, in some developers? view, of the fees levied on commercial projects, as opposed to residential ones — ?It?s astounding,? she said.

?It begs the question to say, ?We need to fund infrastructure,?? Lewis said.

And the talk then turned — as it often does in these discussions — to the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) ?Trip Generation Manual,? now coming out in its eighth edition — a guideline for a wide variety of land uses and how many car trips they typically generate.

Lewis noted that lifestyle changes — such as bank customers relying heavily on online banking, rather than trips to the bank — have not been reflected in the numbers to this point.

When it comes to developer fees, Lewis said, ?We need to re-look at it as a bigger-picture perspective. We need to fund it in a way that makes growth pay for growth.?

Clearly, not as simple as it sounds. Even before the hearing began, city staff asked the council to continue it until their next meeting, on Sept. 7, so the public could weigh in on the issue.