How Do We Pay for Street Maintenance?
Historically, Tigard roads have been maintained by the state Gas Tax, a
source of funding that hasn't risen in 20 years, while road usage,
operations and maintenance costs have increased at an overwhelming rate.
As a result, Tigard is one of eighteen Oregon cities that have adopted
Street Maintenance Fees to close the gap between local needs and
increasingly stretched state dollars. By having a locally based fee,
communities are provided with a stable source of revenue to pay for
preventive maintenance and repairs in a timely and efficient manner.
How are the rates determined?
Existing rates were set under
Council Resolution 10-02
which was based on a five-year maintenance and reconstruction plan. Both residential
and non-residential users pay the fee.
Methodology
The methodologies used by most of the cities in Oregon that have established a
street utility fee are based on trip generation rates for the types of uses to
distribute the costs. These rates are found in a nationwide publication from the
Institute of Transportation Engineers and are compiled through numerous studies.
This
methodology would charge the non-residential
uses 75% of the costs with Washington Square, Fred Meyer, and other large
businesses bearing the brunt of the cost. Most of the traffic generated by
these big businesses use state highways, such as Highway 217, 99W and Hall
Boulevard. Yet, the fee to be collected is for maintenance of City streets.
Under that methodology,
all the businesses, including those downtown, would end up paying much more
because the trip generation rates are based on square footage of building.
The City needed to develop a methodology that distributes the costs of
maintenance among all the non-residential and residential uses in as fair
a manner as possible. No methodology is going to be perfect. The Oregon
Grocery Association suggested the use
of the minimum parking requirements of the Tigard Municipal Code. City
staff agreed that methodology proposed would better distribute
costs to the actual users of the City's street network. The methodology
adopted is one that focuses
on the users of the City streets.
For details on the methodology used for calculating fees,
click here.
Religous Institutions
All religious institutions are charged half of the normal fee assessed to
non-residential businesses, resulting in a 125-space maximum for those that
reach the 250 space limit. This decision was made because parking requirements
for these institutions are relatively high to accommodate large services, while
the parking lots are not fully utilized during the week.
Vacant Property
Property must be occupied to be assessed the fee. If a property
is unoccupied for 30 days or more, the owner may apply for a fee waiver for that
period.
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