Amador County – The Amador County Transportation Commission in a special workshop Wednesday discussed land use policy, and directed staff to prepare a draft list of policies for its meeting later this month.

Executive Director Charles Field gave a background of various development and traffic impact mapping tools now in use, and the board talked about some of their flaws. Field said the commonly used Regional Traffic Mitigation Fee Program had its problems, and “there’s no way it can cover all impacts of all developments in the county, especially major developments.” He said cities have increasingly relied on it.

Field said it grew as Caltrans traffic impact study guidelines were not working, so ACTC developed its own guidelines. He said the ACTC Technical Advisory Committee reviewed traffic modeling practices of ACTC, and recommended the commission should provide assistance and analysis, but should not advocate for enactment of mitigation measures.

Field gave a list of questions, which he tried to word as “bluntly” as he could. Among them, the board agreed they should submit input concerning traffic impacts and mitigations but not advocate for conditions of approval, or development project approval, or denial, unless they were requested to do so by the lead agency.

Field said one planning mechanism, the Circulation Mapping Exercise, known as the CMX, was adopted last week by the Plymouth City Council, as part of its traffic impact financial mitigation plan.

ACTC Program manager Neil Peacock assisted Plymouth in implementing it, and said it was a supplemental funding strategy, supported by Reeder Sutherland during last week’s meeting, and it was based on Plymouth’s general plan. Field said the Plymouth general plan was written to include Reeder’s two developments, even though they are not yet annexed into city limits.

Supervisor Richard Forster said the CMX was not always successful, as shown in the Martell business, where it calculated impacts too costly to implement. He also saw a problem with using it before all other county jurisdictions approved the CMX. He said “huge costs are involved with CMX,” such as one business, whose $600,000 impact fee would have gone to about $8 million.

Field said Plymouth adopted one universal fee plan, but “fair share” fees for impacts have been discussed, and have led to a “set of conditions” on some developments. Others, like the Jackson Valley Quarry are being discussed.

Field said Caltrans thinks the Quarry should be responsible for more of the intersection upgrade because its new development is sending more trucks, and triggering the need for a bigger intersection. The company disagrees. Field said “it will be up to the county to decide.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.