Supervisors OK New Traffic Fee
Developers and homeowners building in Ventura County’s unincorporated areas will have to pay fees for road improvements, under a new traffic policy adopted this week.
The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the policy changes, which will take effect Jan. 19.
Under the new rules, an individual planning a single-family home in an unincorporated area will be charged a $1,351 traffic impact fee, said county planning director Keith Turner.
Commercial developers will be charged a fee based on the square-footage of a particular building and the daily number of vehicle trips that would be made to and from that location, Turner said.
Existing property owners will not be affected by the new traffic fee, Turner said.
The money collected from future development will be used to repair or improve roadways in unincorporated areas. Roads, such as California 33, that are handling more traffic than they are designed to accommodate would be among the first to benefit from the fee.
Meanwhile, Turner said officials hope eventually to negotiate agreements with all of the county’s 10 cities, allowing the county to collect fees from developers whose city projects affect county roadways. The county already has such an agreement with Oxnard and is currently in negotiations with Ventura and Camarillo.
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