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ORDINANCE NO. 436
AN ORDINANCE OF THE TOWN OF LOS ALTOS HILLS ADDING ARTICLE 5 TO
THE MUNICIPAL CODE PERTAINING TO ROADWAY IMPACT FEES
WHEREAS, construction and refuse vehicles contribute to roadway deterioration; and
WHEREAS, the cost of roadway repair and maintenance attributable to deterioration caused by
construction and refuse vehicles can be quantified; and
WHEREAS, the City Council desires to recover the cost of repairing damage caused by
construction and refuse vehicles; and
WHEREAS, the City Council has undertaken a study to analyze and quantify the cost of road
damage caused by construction and refuse vehicles and the means for recovering same;
NOW,THEREFORE, the City Council of the Town of Los Altos Hills does ordain as follows:
1. Addition'of Title 3, Chapter 3, Article 5. Article 5, "Roadway Impact Fee Fund," is
hereby added to Title 3, Chapter 3 of the Town of Los Altos Hills Municipal Code to read as
follows:
3-3.501 Established
Pursuant to the general police power granted to cities by the Article XI, Section 7 of the
State Constitution, there is hereby established a special fund to be known as. the
"Roadway Impact Fee Fund."
3-3.502 Purpose and Intent
This ordinance requires residential construction and refuse collection companies to pay
for their fair share of maintenance, repair and construction of public streets through the
imposition of impact fees. These fees shall be used to finance the maintenance, repair and
construction of public streets as a result of the increased damage caused by the use of
public streets by these construction and refuse vehicles. The amount of each impact fee
shall be calculated based upon the portion of street maintenance costs that result from
increased damage from construction and refuse collection vehicles.
3-3.503 Findings
The City Council hereby finds that:
a. Construction and refuse vehicles impose increased and excessive damage upon the
town's residential roadways.
b. Increased damage caused by construction and refuse vehicles shortens the life span of
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roadways, increases costs and decreases the safety of the roads.
c. To the extent that increased traffic of construction and / or refuse vehicles places
greater demands on the road network, those demands should be satisfied by shifting the
responsibility for financing the increased maintenance, repair and construction costs of
such roadways from the public to the entity creating the demands.
d. The City Council, after careful consideration of the experience of other similarly
situated cities and review of an independent third-part analysis, finds that the imposition
of roadway and refuse impact fees to finance their portion of the streets maintenance,
repair and construction costs is in the best interests of the general welfare of the Town
and its residents, is equitable, and does not impose an unfair burden on construction
activities or refuse collection.
3-3.504 Applicability
Unless expressly exempted, this ordinance applies to all fees imposed by the Town to
finance street maintenance, repairs and construction attributable to construction and
refuse vehicles on residential roadways.
3-3.505 Exemptions
The provisions of this ordinance do not apply to building permits whose permit valuation
is less than $10,000.
3-3.506 Definitions
As used in this ordinance:
a. Benefit area means the geographic area within,which impact fees are collected and
expended for a particular type of capital improvement serving development projects
within such area.
b. Street Maintenance and Repair means the maintenance, repair and construction of
residential roadways in the Town.
c. Capital Improvements Plan means the five-year plan for capital improvements,
adopted annually by the Council, describing the approximate location, size, time of
availability and estimated cost of capital improvement projects and identifies sources of
funding for capital improvement projects.
d. Collection means the point at which the impact fee is actually paid over to the City.
e. Commitment means earmarking impact fees to fund or partially fund street
maintenance and repair projects.
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f. Construction project means and includes any project undertaken for the purpose of
development, including without limitation a project involving the issuance of a permit for
construction, reconstruction, or change of use, and a project involving the issuance of a
permit to remodel, rehabilitate, or improve an existing structure and/or the rebuilding of
a structure destroyed or damaged by an act of God, or the replacement of one structure
with another.
g. Impact fee means any monetary exaction imposed by the Town as a condition of or in
connection with approval of a project for the purpose of defraying all or some of the cost
of or repayment of costs previously expended from other City funds for street
maintenance and repair.
h. Impose means to determine that a particular building permit or refuse collection
company is subject to the collection of impact fees as a condition of approval.
3-3.507 Notice and Hearing Required for Establishing or Increasing an
Impact Fee
a. Prior to establishing or increasing any impact fee, the City Council shall hold a public
hearing at which oral and written testimony may be given.
b. Notice of the time and place of the public hearing, including a general explanation of
the matter to be considered, shall be published for a minimum of ten days prior to the
hearing, in a newspaper regularly published at least once a week and distributed within
the town. The period of notice commences upon the first day of publication and
terminates at the end of the tenth day.
c. At least ten days prior to the public hearing, the Town shall make available to the
public data showing the amount, or the estimated amount of the impact fee, and a
summary of the basis for the calculation of the impact fee amount.
d. Council action to establish or increase any impact fee shall be taken only by ordinance
or resolution.
e. Any costs incurred by the Town in preparing for and conducting the public hearing
may be recovered as a part of the impact fees which are the subject of the hearing.
3-3.508 Imposition, Calculation and Collection of Impact Fees.
a. Except as provided in this ordinance and any amendment to this ordinance, the Town
shall impose impact fees as a condition of approval of all building permit valuations
equal to or greater than $10,000. A refuse vehicle impact fee shall be imposed on all
operators of refuse collection companies based on the portion of street maintenance and
repair attributable to damage caused by the heavy vehicles.
b. Impact fees shall be imposed by including the following language in any document of
development approval:
Approval of this project is conditioned upon payment to the Town of all applicable
impact fees, as provided in the Municipal Code.
c. Impact fees shall be collected by the Building Department at the time, and as a
condition of issuance of a building permit.
d. The schedule of fees shall be those amounts established of resolution of the City
Council, adopted on August 19, 2004 and shall remain in effect until June 30, 2005.
Effective June 30, 2005, and each succeeding June 30tt`, the schedule of fees may be
adjusted in accordance with the following:
1. On January 0 of each year beginning 2005, the Town Engineer shall review the
current National Engineering News Record - Construction Cost Index (ENR — CCI
Index) for San Francisco, California. When such ENR- CCI differs from the ENR- CCI
Index of the preceding January 1St, the factor of increase or decrease shall be applied to
the schedule of fees effective June 30 of that same year .
2. Such factor shall be computed by dividing the ENR - CCI Index for the current
January 0 by that pertaining to the previous January 1St. The impact fee shall be
multiplied by such factor to determine the adjusted schedule of fees.
3-3.509 Impact Fee Accounts
a. The Town shall establish a separate impact fee account for the Roadway Impact Fee
Fund. The funds of the account shall not be commingled with other funds of the Town.
Any account previously established for the deposit of funds that would have been
roadway impact fees under this article shall be deemed an impact fee account for the
purposes of this article.
b. Each impact'fee account shall be interest-bearing and the accumulated interest shall
become a part of the account.
c. The funds of each account shall be expended exclusively for street maintenance and
repair as such term is defined in Section 3-3.506 for which the impact fees were
collected.
3-3.510 Use of Impact Fee Proceeds
Impact fees shall be expended only for the type of street maintenance and repair for
which they were imposed, calculated, and collected and according to the time limits and
procedures established in this article. Impact fees may be used to pay the principal,
interest and other costs of bonds, notes and other obligations issued or undertaken by or
on behalf of the Town to finance such improvements.
3-3.511 Refunds
a. Except as described in subsection b of this section, upon application the Town shall
refund that portion of any impact fee which has been on deposit more than five years and
which is unexpended and uncommitted.
b. If fees in any impact fee account are unexpended or uncommitted for four or more
years after deposit, the City Council shall make findings, at least once each fiscal year
while such condition prevails, to identify the purpose to which such fees shall be put and
to show a roughly proportional and reasonable relationship between the fee and the
purpose for which it was collected. If the Council makes such findings, the fees are
exempt from the refund requirement.
c. The City may refund by direct payment or by offsetting the refund against other impact
fees due for projects by the applicant, or otherwise by agreement with the owner.
3-3.512 Audits
An applicant may request an audit to determine whether the impact fee imposed is
roughly proportional to or exceeds the amount reasonably necessary to finance street
maintenance and repair costs attributable to the impact of the construction or refuse
vehicle on the residential roadways. The City Council shall then retain a qualified,
independent auditor and he or she shall determine whether the fee is appropriate. The
Town may require as a condition of the right to such an audit, that the applicant pay for
the cost of the audit and deposit with the Town a sum equal to the reasonable estimated
cost of the audit. The decision of the independent auditor is final unless appealed to the
Council by the applicant as provided by this article.
3-3.513 Protests and Appeals
a. A person may protest or challenge the imposition of a fee imposed pursuant to this
article by filing, with the City Clerk within ten days following mailing of notice of the
auditor's decision to the appellant, a written notice of appeal with a full statement of the
grounds, and an appeal fee of two hundred dollars or such other amount as may be fixed
from time to time by resolution of the City Council. The Town may continue processing
the development application if the notice of appeal is accompanied with a bond or other
security in an amount equal to the impact fee.
b. The appellant bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that the amount of the fee was
not calculated according to the procedures established in this article.
c. At a regular meeting following the filing of the appeal, the City Council shall fix a time
and place for hearing the appeal and the City Clerk shall mail notice of hearing to the
appellant at the address given in the notice of appeal. The hearing shall be conducted at
the time and place stated in the notice and the determination of the Council shall be
announced at the conclusion of the hearing or at the next regular meeting of the Council.
The determination of the City Council shall be final.
3-3.514 Statute of Limitations
Any judicial action or proceeding to attack, review, set aside or annul the reasonableness,
legality, or validity of any impact fee must be filed and service of process effected within
ninety days following the date of imposition of the fee or the final determination of the
City Council, whichever is later.
3-3.515 Variances and Exceptions
Petitions for variances and exceptions to the application of this article shall be made in
accordance with Title 10 of the Municipal Code.
3-3.516 Amendment Procedures
At least once each year, prior to the City Council's adoption of the budget and revisions
to the Street Maintenance budget, the Director of Finance shall report to the City Council
with:
a. Recommendations for amendments to this article and to other parts of this code and to
resolutions establishing impact fees;
b. Proposals for changes to the Streets Maintenance budget, identifying street
maintenance and repair needs for the Town and the proportion of the expenditures that
can be paid for in part by impact fees;
c. Proposals for changes to impact fee rates and schedules.
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3-3.517 Conflicts
In the event of a conflict between the provisions of this article and the provisions of any
other ordinance or resolution establishing or amending impact fees, the provisions of this
article shall govern.
2. Serverability. If any section subsection, sentence, clause, phrase or portion of this article is
for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by the final decision of any court of
competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of
this article. The City Council declares that it would have adopted this article and each section,
subsection, sentence, clause, phrase or portion thereof, irrespective of the fact that any one or
more sections, subsections, phrases or portions be declared invalid or unconstitutional.
3. Effective Date; Posting. This Ordinance shall become effective thirty (30) days after the date
of its adoption and shall be posted within the Town of Los Altos Hills in three (3) public places.
INTRODUCED: September 16, 2004
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PASSED: October 7 , 2004
AYES,:-'::.-, Mayor O'Malley, Mayor Pro Tem Kerr, Councilmember Cheng
Councilmember Fenwick and Councilmember Warshawsky
NOES: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTENTIONS: None
ATTEST:
City Clerk,' Mayor
APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED:
City Attorney City Manager
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