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Transportation Impact Fee

What are transportation impact fees?

When a property is developed in the City of Auburn, the developer may be required to pay a transportation impact fee (TIF).

The fee is charged on new development or redevelopment that increases demand for the City’s transportation facilities during peak traffic times (typically weekdays between 4:00PM and 6:00PM).  The fees help pay for transportation system improvements needed to provide for increased transportation system capacity to support the new development. The fees do not pay for street frontage improvements or other specific mitigation improvements that the developer may be responsible for providing.

Transportation impact fees are used to help:

  • Maintain concurrency as required by the Washington State Growth Management Act. To maintain concurrency means that adequate transportation infrastructure is in place to serve new development as it occurs.
  • Reduce traffic congestion
  • Reduce delays at intersections
  • Build more roadway connections
  • Building sidewalks, trails, and bike facilities to reduce transportation system capacity needs (mode shift to active transportation)
  • Encourage economic development (Transportation impact fees allow for system capacity projects that are required for development projects to be shared proportionately by the developers)

The transportation impact fees are reviewed by City Council, and adopted by City Council as part of the annual update to the overall fee schedule.

FAQs

For additional information about the transportation impact fee program please refer to the FAQs (PDF) and to the Transportation Impact Fee code.

Projects

The Comprehensive Transportation Plan and Transportation Improvement Program include approximately $200 million of projects and programs needed to maintain concurrency. The Transportation Impact Fee program is expected to collect $81 million to help fund the projects and programs that provide the transportation system capacity identified to accommodate growth and development in Auburn between 2024 and 2044.

The projects included in the Transportation Impact Fee program are shown in the Transportation Impact Fee Interactive Map.

More detailed information about each project, including the proposed scope and estimated project costs can be found here:

TIF Calculator

The TIF Estimation Tool can be used to estimate the amount of traffic impact fees required for your proposed project. This calculator is for estimates only. Final fee amounts will be calculated by the City.