SIMI VALLEY : City Delays Vote on Raising Builder Fees

The Simi Valley City Council has postponed action on a plan to charge developers higher fees to help pay for street improvements citywide.

The council was expected to approve the higher fees this week, but members delayed the vote for two weeks to add a provision that exempts schools and a park district from the charges.

The new fees, which would take effect in September, are considerably less than those proposed earlier this year. City officials decided to revise the original fee schedule after building-industry officials argued that the levies were excessive and could jeopardize the city’s development.

“We think we’ve come up with something that is fair,” Mayor Greg Stratton said in an interview. Stratton and Councilman Glen McAdoo served on a committee that studied proposed fees and recommended changes.

Under the new plan, developers would pay $22.38 for each vehicle trip caused by new housing. Commercial and industrial builders would pay $10.50 for each trip. City officials said the new fees would help finance $10.6 million in city street improvements needed to accommodate future growth.

The traffic fees would replace the fee developers now pay for traffic signal improvements. The new fees are expected to generate $121,000 each year, compared to $40,000 from the traffic signal fee. As originally proposed, the new fees ranged from $95.73 to $151.83 per trip regardless of the type of development. They would have generated about $27.8 million.

City officials agreed with business leaders that the proposed fees were too high and would make it difficult to build a broader economic base. Stratton said increases in traffic are caused by surges in population, not additional commercial development. So residential builders should pay more in traffic fees, he said.