The Puyallup City Council met in regular session on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers at City Hall, 333 S. Meridian. All members were present except Councilmember Kastama (excused). Mayor Witting presided, and the meeting adjourned at 8:22 PM after an executive session. Due to technical difficulties, the first portion of the meeting was not audio recorded; the consent agenda and earlier items are summarized from the minutes and agenda.
What does it mean to be good? I like the health care. Well, you can talk about the car. Not the same. Been here a few times there uh for the traffic impact fee. We're now at the point of doing a second reading and a public ordinance or a public hearing tonight. So I'll give a short presentation here on it, and then we'll uh move on to the public hearing part. So I'll give a little background there, but go over it um fairly quickly since we've been here um three times prior to this um where we've made decisions on the traffic impact fee. So just a reminder the traffic impact fee is a one-time charge to developers, and it's really to um offset the incremental additional trips that new development brings to the city, which causes um to um traffic to back up, and so we try to keep up with that with projects to uh increase the capacity of our streets. Um traffic impact fee study very much does a calculation on this on the projects that are needed, the cost of those projects, it removes out existing deficiencies, it removes out trips that aren't generated from within the city, and then it divvies up those costs by the projected number of trips over the next um ten years. The new fee right now um is that the maximum defensible rate of 8,762, um, and we do that by PM peak trip. And these funds are very specifically labeled, they can only be used towards those projects. Now, those projects will need other funds too, but you can't use these for just any um project there. So it really is a method for growth to kind of pay for growth as it occurs. And these two maps are just kind of a representation of the projects that are on the traffic impact fee study, the project list. They include both non-motorized improvements but also corridor improvements like Shaw Road and Knight Street Southwest and several of the intersections labeled up there in uh red. And then this is a slide that we showed last um week emphasizing that um what we're gonna do is begin this new fee in January uh 1st, 2027. Um applications that are in place at the time of building complete building permit application will be vested to the current TIFF fees that are in place when they vest. Um, and then the developer has the option, if they choose, they can either pay those at the time of permit issuance or they can ask for a deferral. And if they do defer, those vested fees will continue for um certific until they reach certificate of occupancy or 18 months, whichever comes sooner. Um a couple of the policy choices that we've made here. Um we're going to index the traffic impact fee to inflation so we keep up with the cost of projects that are that are rising. Um we have some specific um reductions in the fee for certain types of land use. Some of these are um dictated as you it's an option for a city to choose these reductions, such as the early learning center or the low income, and that gives up to an 80% reduction in their traffic impact fees. Um are mandated along with you know the idea of providing more housing options. The reduction for ADU is mandated at 50 percent, so we don't really have a choice on that one. Um, and also a reduction of 50 percent for the multi-family residentials that do the 20-year um claim the 20-year tax exemption. That's where you need to have 20% of your units be low income, and they also have to be within five half a mile of the um transit center. And then um we lack previous land uses, so as development occurs, we look back the years, what that was decided was looking back up to 10 years for the previous land use and how many trips that was generated. Those will be credited against a new redevelopment at that site. So it uh recognizes that some of those trips are already kind of baked into um the amount of traffic. And then one other item that we've added is a heavy truck trip adjustment, recognizing that trucks take up a lot more room than a car, but that only applies to industrial land uses where we increase the fee to account for those um traffic the heavy trucks that are generated by that land use. And then this is a slide, I apologize. It's in error. It's supposed to be there's a credit given as a developer does improvements on their site. So if they build frontage and road that is part of a system improvement increase in the capacity, they get a credit against their TIFF fees for the cost of those improvements there because they're part of the whole system, and so they're improving that. And so the next steps, I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have, but we hold the public hearing and then we consider the second reading of the ordinance. And that's the end of my presentation today. Okay, we'll now open up our public hearing for citizen comments. Each citizen is allowed to speak for two minutes. Uh do I have anyone that wishes to speak? Uh good evening, council. For the record, Aaron Hallenberg, I'm the director of government affairs for the Pierce County Master Builders Association. Uh, but more importantly, resident of District 1. So thanks for happy to be here, short commute back to home. Um again, impact fees right. Again, this will ultimately impact affordability and will raise the cost of housing. But I'm more or less here just to kind of offer some information. Um we've shared the data before, but we have national studies that show for um the that the end consumer pays 20% more on that impact fee than developer does. And I think it's a common misconception that the developer is the one paying the fee, right?