The Act removes the state mandate for local governments to enforce transportation concurrency, the regulatory requirement that roadway and other transportation facilities be in place concurrent with the impact of new development. If local governments continue to enforce transportation concurrency, as most local governments appear to be doing at this time, then the Act requires that local governments must continue to obey the state mandate to provide proportionate share mitigation options to applicants for new development approvals, and to follow the revised statutory rules for calculating such mitigation.
Mitigation must be “sufficient to accomplish one or more mobility improvements that will benefit a regionally significant transportation facility,” and can only be required for facilities that are “significantly impacted.” Aside from Developments of Regional Impact, there is no statutory standard for significance, and local governments will need to develop their test of significance.
The Act changed mitigation by requiring that local governments determine which of their roadways are “deficient.” Local governments are also encouraged to coordinate with adjacent local governments on methodologies for measuring transportation impacts. A “transportation deficiency,” as defined in Section 163.3180(5)(h)3.e., Florida Statutes, means:
“a facility or facilities on which the adopted level of service standard is exceeded by existing committed and vested trips, plus additional projected background trips from any source other than the development project under review, and trips that are forecast by established traffic standards, including traffic modeling, consistent with the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research medium population projections. Additional projected background trips are to be coincident with the particular stage or phase of development under review.”
Once deficient facilities are identified, the local government must exclude the costs of correcting that deficiency from the proportionate share calculation. The analysis must assume that the improvement(s) necessary to address the deficiency is already in place, regardless of whether that improvement is actually programmed or funded. The Act specifically places the responsibility for funding that deficiency on the entity that has maintenance responsibility for the facility. In a time of constrained revenues and budgets, local governments will need to carefully monitor the responsibilities for resolving deficiencies in transportation facilities, and tolerate additional congestion for a longer period of time.
The proportionate share calculation is based on the cost to achieve or maintain the adopted level of service, although the Act elsewhere removed the 2005 legislative requirement for financial feasibility and created an alternative “reasonably able to meet” standard. The applicant must receive a credit for impact, mobility fees, or other fees paid or payable in the future for transportation. The credit must be reduced to account for the impact of the applicant’s development on the improved facility, either as provided by local methodology or up to 20%, whichever yields the greater credit against the proportionate share obligation.
Author(s): Susan L. Trevarthen
