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QuoteRather than using the recommended formula, the city's planning department has been using its own "professional judgment" to calculate development fees for about a year, City Councilman Bill Bishop said.
Bishop introduced a bill Tuesday to have a technical advisory panel of traffic engineers advise the planning department on calculating fees.
The department's use of professional judgment was creating too much confusion, Bishop said. The mobility fee system was designed so developers could use a formula based on the location of potential projects to calculate fees and know "within 95 percent" what it would be.
full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2014/03/12/developers-disgruntled-over-jacksonvilles-use-of.html
Sounds like a total mess. But this needs a lot more clarity. Normally I'd be outraged, but Bill Bishop's stance on the mobility plan tells me that I need to wait before being upset.
If I had to guess about "professional judgement", I'd say it's more a case of undercharging some developers and not others, rather than overcharging. Now the developers being charged the proper fee are complaining about the special "privilege" of the others.
Bishop's outrage is a little ironic considering that he his changes to the mobility plan would add MORE unpredictability.
Quote from: thelakelander on March 13, 2014, 07:31:07 AM
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QuoteRather than using the recommended formula, the city's planning department has been using its own "professional judgment" to calculate development fees for about a year, City Councilman Bill Bishop said.
Bishop introduced a bill Tuesday to have a technical advisory panel of traffic engineers advise the planning department on calculating fees.
The department's use of professional judgment was creating too much confusion, Bishop said. The mobility fee system was designed so developers could use a formula based on the location of potential projects to calculate fees and know "within 95 percent" what it would be.
full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2014/03/12/developers-disgruntled-over-jacksonvilles-use-of.html
Professional judgment....are you freakin' kidding?
Why can't the trip calculations and the formula speak for itself? Why allow for manipulation?
Oh, for a City department that would speak up to defend itself!
It would be helpful to see an example or two of the subjectivity and professional judgment in question.
There is some legitimacy in the complaint. I will do my best to explain.
The most significant variable in the mobility fee calculation is the Average Daily Trip (ADT) value. The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) publishes a manual that calculates ADT based on a factor such as building area, # of employees, # of seats, etc. The ADT is usually a curve or line best fit with a data set that is rarely uniform. Imagine a wide scattering of data points on a page and then someone drawing a line through the middle. Some use types are based 3 or 4 data points, which leads to a low confidence in the predicted ADT (speaking scientifically).
ITE also publishes what they consider to be the number of trips (cars entering the development) that are "passby". "Passby" trips are the cars that were going to be travelling on that road regardless (such as a commuter going to or from work). Land uses such as banks, fast food restaurants and gas stations will have higher passby trips than "destination" uses such as high quality restaurants, large shopping malls, and movie theaters. If the "passby" is 50%, then the ADT will be reduced by 50% in the mobility fee calculation. For fast food restaurants, ITE publishes a range of about 15% to 85% passby trips. Often times, the average (which is 50% passby) is used in the calculation by transportation engineers. The city has been using 15% (the low end) and hasn't explained the rationale for the bottom of the scale. That is what is causing the rub.
I am a solid supporter of the mobility fee, however, I am concerned that if the fees aren't calculated in a predictable, justifiable manner, we will be opening the door for more moratoriums and monkeying of the calculations.
CM Bishop is right when he says that the mobility plan/fee was intended to be a predictable method for calculating the fees that would be consistently applied. The problem should be easily solved by agreeing to what the parameters for factors such as passby trips will be for future applications.
If the city is always using 15%, isn't that predictable? You may think the number is too low, but from what you said, it seems consistent. Now, if use 15% for your development, and 85% for one represented by Paul Harden - that is unfair.
also note that there is a general guideline used throughout Florida that allows for a max. pass-by reduction equal to 10% of adjacent street background traffic....even if the reduction shown in ITE is much higher
Quote from: tufsu1 on March 13, 2014, 10:36:58 PM
also note that there is a general guideline used throughout Florida that allows for a max. pass-by reduction equal to 10% of adjacent street background traffic....even if the reduction shown in ITE is much higher
Please quote source. AASHTO? Florida Greenbook? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just not a traffic engineer.
Also, its obvious on why the City uses the minimum value. They want the smallest trip reduction factor possible to keep trips high and mobility fees high, right? Again, not disagreeing, just pointing this out.
If the minimum factor is consistently used, why not update the calculations to state this? Then its known by the developers, and the it's predictable.
Frankly, much of transportation engineering (and civil in general) consists of selecting values based on set ranges for a number of variables in design. Its part of the profession, and its why selecting the appropriate value should be consistent, predictable, and defensible, and should be performed by a licensed engineer. I'm not familiar with the credentials of COJ staff.