Port Orchard could soon implement a transportation impact fee that would help fund the city’s infrastructure.

During the Oct. 14 council meeting, the Port Orchard City Council heard a presentation on transportation impact fees by Victor Salemann, of Transportation Solutions, Inc.

Currently, Kitsap County has a $515 rate for traffic impact fees, while Pierce County is at $1,742.

Among neighboring cities, Gig Harbor’s impact fee is $2,012, but is in the process of being updated. Poulsbo’s is at $2,830.

According to an analysis report by David Evans and Associates, impact fees are a group of charges based on new development within a municipality.

The fees are assessed to pay for capital facility improvement projects necessitated by new development, including but not limited to parks, schools, streets and roads.

“Traffic impact fees are a tool to fund infrastructure authorized by the Growth Management Act (GMA) and in support of development,” Salemann said.

He said the impact fees — based on state regulations — need to be related to growth, in the Comprehensive Plan and Capital Facilities Plan.

“There are some very sufficient benefits to impact fees,” Salemann said. “Basically predictable cost for development. When you don’t have an impact fee, it’s not that development isn’t paying something for transportation mitigation, the problem is they don’t know what they’re paying until after they go through your development review process, do their studies and identify their impacts.”

He said a good impact fee program will have those impacts established in advance and establish a price so developers will “know the cost up front.”

“That is a big decision helper for them,” Salemann said.

He said impact fee also creates predictable revenue for the city.

“They then can implement the transportation plan that you desire,” he said.

Salemann said there is flexibility in determining impact fees, such as cost per vehicle trip, cost per person trip, single and multi-zone.

“The most typical are cost per vehicle trip, which is easy to predict and measure, but some agencies are moving to a more complicated cost per person trip and trying to include things more than roadways,” he said. “It’s a little bit more challenging. Most cities use a single zone because it is easier, especially a city of your size. A project in one part of town will impact your whole transportation system.”

He said a multi-zone could mean different rates in different parts of a town or city.

Projects eligible for impact fees are expansion or improvements to intersections, roadway and previously constructed improvement.

Since the city doesn’t have a transportation impact fee, Salemann said it is looking at two different areas of transportation project costs (planned roadway projects and McCormick Urban Village Development improvements) and growth share of project costs.

According to the city’s agreement with McCormick Urban Village Development, Salemann noted McCormick Urban Village Development did agree to pay future impact fees that the city would charge.

“They would have two impact fees — a smaller one already agreed to and subject to new impact fees,” he said.

According to the report, the proposed impact fee would be calculated based upon trip generation (the main increase for traffic) resulting in growth and the cost of improvements related to growth.

A chart shows that this year, there are more than 16,300 total trips estimated and more than 28,000 in 2035, which would make the growth share at 42.3 percent or $3,822 per trip based on $108 million in total project costs.

Salemann said if the city implements a transportation impact fee, it should be reviewed and updated by the council three years after the effective date or when the council deems it appropriate in conjunction with the update of the city’s Transportation Improvement Program.

The state average transportation impact fee is $2,880, while the highest is $14,707 by Sammamish. Kitsap County has the lowest fee in the state.

Cities with similar population have various impact fee rates based on 2013 data. Enumclaw’s impact fees range from $2,907 to $2,937, while Lynden’s rates are from $1,997 to $2,016. Sedro-Wolley’s impact fees range from $4,186 to $4,230 and Washougal’s fee is $2,192.