The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We don’t have the political will”
By Katherine Nettles
During its June meeting, the Gunnison Valley Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) decided to hold off pursuing transit impact fees for new developments for now due to lack of interest from participating jurisdictions. The RTA will instead continue pursuing individual capital projects such as bus stops and parking lots as they come up with new developments.
The idea of imposing transit impact fees had first come up during an RTA meeting in February as the board discussed how to handle infrastructure costs as developments increase ridership and expand service areas. For the next few months following, the board and staff explored what it would take to impose such a fee and whether they had the support of each individual jurisdiction within the valley.
RTA executive director Scott Truex drafted a proposal in May for board members to consider and board members agreed to discuss the idea further with their individual councils and government boards. Truex wrote in a memo to the board in June that he had consulted with the RTA attorney, “regarding the ability of the jurisdictions to levy transit impact fees to fund capital improvements for transit in the valley. We both agree that the determination of whether jurisdictions are able to assess fees would be best made by the individual jurisdictions in consultation with their legal counsel.”
The idea was that if all or several jurisdictions agreed, the RTA would conduct a study to demonstrate the need for such a fee first.
However, as the board members discussed it again at their latest meeting, they agreed not to pursue the study or fee at this time.
Board member Laura Puckett Daniels, who represents the Gunnison County commissioners, reported that the county is not interested in pursuing the transit impact fee right now given other challenges it is facing with a $38 million deficit on road and bridge funds. The county’s current plan is to go to voters, likely in 2026, with a ballot initiative to raise funds for that need. “We don’t have the political will,” she said.
Puckett Daniels said county attorney Matthew Hoyt also had concerns an impact fee might be challenged in court, based on a recent Supreme Court decision tightening up the requirements to justify impact fees. “It basically says you have to have a tighter nexus for the impact fee…there’s a huge political, legal lift in doing it,” said Puckett Daniels. “And given the headwinds we’re facing with just trying to get anything passed for the road and bridge measure we decided we need to take care of that first.”
She said she still wanted to explore collaborative ways to address capital expenses for transit, such as the RTA’s right to add a fee to car registrations, or to go to voters for an increase in sales tax sometime in the longer term.
“Given that, I would suggest that we move forward with other solutions,” said Truex. “Asking for capital improvements as a development comes in to be constructed is probably a more impactful solution than impact fees. We might be better off asking for things like bus stops and parking lots and other transit solutions.”
Board member Matt Schwartz, representing the Gunnison city council, said he had brought it up with the city manager and felt the city council needed to discuss it more. “We’re not necessarily adverse but we would need to have that discussion and the other big thing we would need is that study to determine what the rational nexus is and whether it stands up,” he said.
“That [study] would be an expense the RTA would probably have to take on,” said Truex. “Hopefully with Mountain Express.”
Schwartz agreed. “I like the idea of us trying to work through these issues in the planning process, rather than an impact fee,” he said.
“I think that the contribution of an impact fee in the town of Crested Butte would be pretty limited just because of lack of space [for development],” said board member Anna Fenerty, who is a CB council member. She said it might be too small of a scale to make much difference.
“It seems like every jurisdiction is just going to have a slightly different need or ability to contribute,” said board member Diego Plata, mayor of Gunnison. “We certainly have the possibility to have the biggest impact,” he said of Gunnison, but questioned the equity of bringing in a lot of revenue for the RTA from one jurisdiction that might not see the full benefits of that revenue.
Board member Nicholas Kempin, representing the Mt. Crested Butte council, said it was not something his council had discussed yet. “But I think our council is very focused on transportation and I think we’d certainly be open to the idea.”
RTA attorney Kathy Fogo said the nexus study would have to be broader than just one or maybe two jurisdictions, but they could look into it further.
Truex said he would take it off the agenda for future meetings until otherwise requested, and the board indicated they were comfortable with that.
Plata and Kempin said they could bring it up with their councils in the meantime.
