Cary, North Carolina

Transportation Development Fee Study
   

For the Town of Cary, one of the fastest growing cities in the nation, Duncan Associates designed and developed a zonal, improvements-based transportation facility fee program. The firm had developed a more traditional city-wide, consumption-based road facility fee system in the late 1980s. The update was undertaken in conjunction with the development of a long-range transportation plan by Wilbur Smith Associates. We coordinated with the engineers to perform select-link analysis, and used the results to allocate costs between geographic areas. In addition to the "downtown" area defined by

an inner loop road, City staff identified other areas with high development potential and expensive improvements needed to accommodate growth. The updated facility fee was adopted by the Town Council concurrently with the amendments to the adequate public facilities (APF) ordinance. The Town-wide fee was assessed on all new development in the Town. The zonal fees, however, were not assessed in the downtown zone in order to encourage infill and redevelopment in this area. Duncan Associates was retained to update the fees in 2007. During this update, the fee system was simplified, and fees in the downtown core were reduced based on the lower level of service standard required in the area by the APF ordinance.