Green Light Given to Traffic Impact Fees

Spurred by public discontent over traffic snarls, the Los Angeles City Council joined in a nationwide trend Friday and decided to require developers who build in some congested areas to pay a fee for the traffic their projects add to surrounding city streets.

In concept, the plan is designed to raise the money needed to widen streets and make other improvements to absorb the increased flow of traffic. Details of the plan--such as which areas will be included and the amount of the fees--were left to future wrangling among City Council members, many of whom rely heavily on developers for their campaign money.

A final, and probably routine, vote is needed next week to turn the proposal by council President Pat Russell into law. It passed the main hurdle Friday by an 11-1 vote after more than a year of delicate political maneuvering that came to an end with developers and some homeowner groups backing the plan.

“This really is a ground-breaking ordinance,” Russell said, “and may indeed do more to reduce traffic congestion than building the major structures,” such as the Metro Rail subway and various above-ground rail lines now under consideration.

In other cities, such levies--called impact fees--are credited with helping to reduce the extra load on overburdened streets from new offices and industrial parks, experts in the transportation field say. But, they add, by focusing only on new developments these plans do nothing for existing congestion--and make only a moderate dent in future congestion.

“One should look at impact fees for what they are,” said Kenneth Orski, a Washington consultant and former federal transportation official. “They are really a revenue-raising technique, and a very effective one . . . but they are not really a device to constrain or reduce traffic.”

But in Los Angeles, in addition to fees, the city plans to require that developers of new buildings in areas designated as “congested” by the City Council come up with a way to cut the number of vehicles entering or leaving during rush hour. They can do this by reducing the availability of free parking, encouraging car pools and ride-sharing and otherwise discourage driving, Russell said.

Failure to reduce the number of car trips at rush hour could lead to a major developer losing the right to finish later phases of a project, or lesser sanctions against smaller developers, a Russell staff aide said.

The traffic limits and deadlines will vary around the city and could depend heavily, said one city official, on how strict or how lax the local council member wants to be with the developers in his district.

Study to Identify Areas

Soon after final passage, city transportation analysts will begin a study to identify streets and intersections where congestion has reached unacceptable limits, city officials said. Lines will then be drawn around the congested areas, and any commercial building activity inside the congested zones will be subject to the ordinance, called the Traffic Reduction Improvement Plan.

Russell said she expects the specific local fees and restrictions to be patterned after a year-old trial ordinance that has governed new growth in her Westchester-Airport district. Some new developers there are required to pay $2,010 for every rush-hour trip their building attracts, with the money going to street projects, such as the widening of Lincoln Boulevard.

Developers also must reach a specified goal for ride-sharing, and some must make improvements to driveways and streets in the immediate vicinity of their new buildings.

Russell, who is running for reelection, has been besieged by political opponents who say the city should attempt to slow development in the Airport and Venice areas, not just collect money to expand the capacity of the already-taxed streets. They want the city to restrict development beyond what was required by Proposition U, the law passed by voters in November that tries to control traffic by curtailing high-rise development in much of the city.

Council Colleagues Concur

But Russell on Friday characterized her district as “undeveloped,” and she called her proposed law the first plan in Los Angeles to tie citywide development to its traffic impact. She was defended even by council colleagues who are often her most bitter political critics.

“It gets us going in the right direction,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, an author of Proposition U. Councilman Joel Wachs, who considers Russell his council nemesis, praised her Friday for stubbornly nudging the ordinance through the City Hall political maze. “It’s very easy to criticize something on the basis that it doesn’t do everything,” Wachs said of her critics.

The Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., an influential homeowner group, came out in support of the Russell plan Friday after language was added stating that the city could require lower building densities as part of its rules for new development. “We’re going to give it a chance at this point,” a spokeswoman said.

The lone negative vote was cast by Valley Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who said the council was ignoring the need to cut growth, which is predicted to add considerable new traffic congestion in the next decade.