Nolensville, Tennessee

Road Impact Fee Study
   

The Town of Nolensville, located on the outskirts of Nashville, is a small community (3,200 residents in 2000) that is poised for significant growth. The Town land use plan projects that the population will triple in the next ten years. The Town has the authority to enact impact fees under its mayor-aldermanic charter. In 2007, the Town retained Duncan Associates to help develop a system of road impact fees. The fees were developed based on a transportation plan prepared by a local engineering firm. The transportation plan identifies approximately $29 million in roadway infrastructure improvements needed

to meet future traffic demand, including widening existing two-lane roads to three lanes, improving existing two-lane roads, relocating existing road sections, improving intersections by adding turn lanes and signals, and making drainage improvements. $21 million were determined to be growth-related costs eligible for impact fee funding. The costs of improving Nolensville Road, the major traffic artery, were assigned to both residential and nonresidential development. However, nonresidential development, which is located exclusively on Nolensville Road, was determined not to cause the need for or benefit from improvements to the residential collectors that feed on to Nolensville Road. Because of this, the fees for nonresidential were considerably lower than they were for residential uses.