CITY OF PACIFICA
COUNCIL AGENDA SUMMARY REPORT
3/14/2022
1 SUBJECT:
Study Session on Utility Pavement Cut and Construction/Waste Truck Roadway Impact Fee Studies
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Receive Report on Utility Pavement Cut and Construction/Waste Truck Roadway Impact Fee Studies
STAFF CONTACT:
Lisa Petersen, Director of Public Works
(650) 738-3770
[email protected]
Ryan Marquez, Associate Engineer
(650) 738-3769
[email protected]
BACKGROUND/DISCUSSION
The City of Pacifica is responsible for maintaining over 90 centerline miles of street pavement.
In order to fund street maintenance work, the City adopts a budget every year for an annual street maintenance project as part of the Capital Improvement Program (CIP). At the October 12, 2020 City Council meeting, staff provided Council an update on the overall condition of the City’s pavements based on the City’s 2019 Pavement Condition Index Report (also known as the Budget Options Report). At this meeting, Council approved the City’s 5-year Street Maintenance Program. Additionally, Council approved an agreement with NCE Consulting Engineers to provide a study that reviewed the impact of utility cuts and construction/waste trucks on the City’s street network to develop a proposed fee related to these impacts. The purpose of this study session is to present the results of this study and collect feedback from Council members on the proposed fees.
The City’s funding for streets since FY18/19 included one-time funding of $900,000 from the City’s General Fund and One Bay Area Grant (OBAG) funding and ongoing funding from Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and Measure W funding with yearly allocations of approximately $600K and $440K, respectively. Additionally, rollover Measure A money in Street Construction Fund (Fund 9) of approximately $350K/year was provided for the City’s adopted 5-year Street Maintenance program that concludes in FY 2024/25. These limited funding sources will not be sufficient to prevent some of the City’s streets from deteriorating and requiring expensive maintenance treatments or prevent the City’s overall pavement condition from continuing to drop. The October 12, 2020 Council report noted that the City would need to identify other funding strategies to prevent further degradation of the City’s street network and to address the accumulating deferred pavement maintenance backlog that continues to grow. 2021 Budget Options Report
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Since discussion of the 2019 Budget Options Report in October of 2020, a new Budget Options Report (BOR) has been received by the City from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s (MTC) consultant (Fugro) that was completed in March of 2021 as part of the MTC Pavement Management Technical Assistance Program (P-TAP). Like the 2019 BOR, the 2021 BOR shows the City’s pavements continuing to degrade under current funding levels, highlighting the City’s need to find alternative funding strategies for City streets. Pavement condition is expressed in terms of a number called Pavement Condition Index (PCI) that rates pavements between 0 and 100, with 0 used for failed pavement and 100 used for new pavement. MTC’s most recent report on Bay Area cities pavement conditions shows that the City of Pacifica has the lowest Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of all 101 Bay Area cities. The 2021 BOR report projects Pacifica’s overall PCI to drop from 42 to 38 (both considered Poor Condition Category) by 2025 at current funding levels and continue a downward trend. Separating streets into low traffic and high traffic streets, the report shows the City’s low traffic residential streets have an average PCI in the low 30’s and the City’s higher traffic arterial/collector streets have an average PCI of around 50. The below table provides a breakdown of pavement condition category related to PCI:
The 2021 BOR report can be found on the City’s website at www.cityofpacifica.org/depts/pw/engr/city_streets_maintenance_program/default.
The 2021 BOR report shows that to stop the PCI decline, the City would need to identify at least $900,000 of additional pavement funding per year beyond the current pavement funding level of $1.35 M per year. It is also important to note that the City is using reserve Measure A funds of $350,000 per year towards the current pavement funding level that will run out in the next several years. Consequently, to maintain the current PCI in these out years, they City would need to increase funding by $1.25 M to stop the City’s overall PCI decline. Additional funds beyond this would be needed to increase the City’s overall pavement condition.
Utility Pavement Cut Fee and Construction and Waste Truck Pavement Impact Fee Studies
Following Council’s approval of the NCE agreement to perform this study, and in-line with Council’s goals of Stewardship of City Infrastructure that includes improving street conditions, staff has been working with NCE on pavement funding strategies related to utility pavement cuts and construction/waste truck impact fees. Implementation of these fees would allow for increased pavement funding that could help halt the continued downward trend of the City’s pavement condition and allow for additional streets to be added to the City’s current 5-year Street Maintenance Program. These funding strategies are based on scientific data that Pacifica City Council 3
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correlates pavement damage to pavement trenching and construction and waste truck street use.
Although California law does not allow cities to charge general road use fees to companies that are using a jurisdiction’s roadways, State laws do allow for collection of one-time fees related to construction impacts by developments to roads or caused by utility trench cutter’s use of City property. Additionally, costs related to pavement impacts from waste trucks could be included as part of a franchise fee, if agreed to by the City’s franchise solid waste hauler, in recognition of the impacts that waste vehicles have to a City’s roads. The following paragraphs will discuss the findings of these studies and data that supports fees to be charged to offset damages being caused to Pacifica’s streets by these activities. Fee recommendations related to waste truck impacts will be discussed with Council during upcoming discussions with Recology of the Coast on their franchise agreement. Fees related to construction vehicle impacts and utility cuts will be discussed with Council during the upcoming end of the fiscal year budget meetings related to annual Fee Schedule adoption.
Fees can be reduced for all developments or for a certain type of development for a justifiable reason associated with a Council adopted policy. The policy does not need to be adopted before reducing fees. At the Fee Schedule adoption meeting, staff will recommend fee changes related to City development/construction activities as noted below:
· Construction Vehicle Pavement Impact Fees and Utility Cut Fees for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) - Any ADU that is under 750 square feet shall not be charged a pavement impact fee or utility cut fee. Staff is recommending that both fees shall not be charged for an ADU of any size when the ADU is being constructed at the same time, under the same permit, as a new main residential unit or an expansion of the main unit that make payment of the fees as required. The Council has also directed staff to evaluate policies to incentivize affordable housing production by reducing fees during the Housing Element development and implementation.
· Partially or Fully Credit Utility Cut Impact Fees for Developments with Pavement Improvements - As a condition of approval, many new developments are required to pave the roadway in front of the development as a nexus for improving infrastructure adjacent to the development as well as impacts the development’s utility cuts may have on the road. Staff will recommend providing these developments a credit against their Utility Cut Impact fees for completing frontage roadway paving as this will mitigate the impacts of the cut.
· Reduced Utility Cut Impact Fees Related to Sewer Lateral Repairs Not Requiring a Lateral Compliance Certificate - Staff will recommend charging a minimal fee ($500) for pavement cuts related to fixing a sewer lateral not requiring a Sewer Lateral Compliance Certificate. Lowering the fee for these types of repairs will prevent the fee from becoming an obstacle to needed sewer lateral replacement for cracked/broken laterals.
Waste and Construction (Heavy) Vehicle Impact Study
Cities can collect fees for pavements related to waste vehicles through a franchise fee or separate fee as part of a negotiated requirement in the franchise agreement. They can also collect one-time fees from developers for heavy construction vehicle roadway impacts. The City recently completed a study (Attachment 1) related to the impacts of waste and heavy vehicle (construction) impacts on pavement longevity to determine what a correlated fee would be. The purpose of the study was to estimate the structural and therefore financial impact to the roadway from waste and construction vehicles.
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Waste Vehicles
Over the past 15 years, the number of waste vehicles has increased on local roads and streets throughout California. Historically, one waste vehicle provided services once a week. More recently, three vehicles (e.g., garbage, recycling, organics) provide weekly or biweekly services.
The impact of waste truck trips has been studied by many cities and was recently studied by NCE Consulting Engineers for the City of Pacifica with the goal of answering two questions:
1) What impact do waste vehicles have on the pavement life of Pacifica streets? 2) What is the corresponding financial impact to the City of Pacifica? Using a technical approach through Caltrans Highway Design Manual and the American Association of State and Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), reviewing weight of vehicles and frequency of trips and condition of Pacifica’s pavement, NCE was able to determine the impact waste vehicles have on the life of Pacifica’s pavements. Staff projected that the City’s ultimate goals would be in the next 15 years to raise the City’s residential streets up from a PCI in the low 30’s to a PCI of 60 and the combined arterial and collector street PCI from a 50 to a 70. This would provide for all the City’s streets to be in the “Good” condition category range and lower the overall cost of maintaining the City’s roadways.
With the above information, NCE was able to provide answers to the questions related to pavement life and financial impact. It is important to note that these impacts are directly related to the existing condition of a jurisdiction’s roadways, consequently, fees between cities do not provide an “apples to apples” comparison. Based on the NCE study, in Pacifica waste vehicles consume 10% of residential street pavement life and 6% of arterial/collector street pavement life each year. This translates into a yearly cost to the City of $511,000 damage to residential pavements and $184,000 damage to arterial/collector streets. Cities that collect fees related to waste truck pavement impacts typically do this through the waste company franchise fee that is sometimes included as a separate fee line.
Heavy Construction Vehicles
The study also looked at the damage that is caused to City streets during construction of development projects by heavy construction vehicles traversing City streets to get back and forth from development projects. The impact of heavy construction vehicles to pavements from these trips has been studied by many cities and was included in the recent NCE pavement impact study for the City of Pacifica. Pacifica requested NCE review the impacts to city streets caused by heavy vehicle construction activity on City streets related to developments.
The study noted that damage to pavement caused by heavy construction vehicles during construction of development projects is similar to the damage caused by waste vehicles, however, heavy construction vehicles do not traverse City streets in the same manner (i.e., weekly route through all neighborhoods). Estimating this damage cost for the study of heavy construction vehicles was completed by the following:
- Calculating the average cost per vehicle-mile traveled through conversion of yearly waste vehicle damage.
- Estimating the conservative number of vehicle trips/miles travelled to development sites. - Developing costs associated with square foot of construction with other options.
Using this information, NCE’s report recommendation includes a per square foot price for residential, multi-family, and commercial developments of $1.19/square foot of new structure.
This would translate to a one-time fee of $2,126 for a new 1800 sf single family home or $952 Pacifica City Council 5
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for a new 800 sf multi-family unit.
Utility Cut Fees
Study and quantification of the impact of utility cuts on road and street performance has been occurring for over 30 years. Public agencies, as well as utility companies, have sponsored engineering investigations and studies to quantify the impact of utility cuts on pavement performance and estimate the financial cost. NCE Consulting completed a study of the impact of utility cuts to Pacifica’s pavements (Attachment 2). The purpose of this study was to compare pavement performance for the street sections with and without cuts, quantify damage caused by utility cuts to the pavements within the City and develop a fee schedule for the City to recover any costs associated with such damage.
To accomplish this, NCE looked at both the structural and functional deterioration of pavements due to utility cuts. The field evaluation included selecting sixteen sites on city streets of different ages. Deflection testing using a falling weight deflectometer (FWD) was conducted to assess loss of structural capacity due to cuts. In addition, the City’s StreetSaver® database, which contains 15 years of pavement distress data and thousands of data points with a wide range of pavement age and conditions, was analyzed to assess the impact of utility cuts. The findings from the study included:
· Pavements with cuts of any size deteriorate more than pavements without cuts across all pavement age groups (0-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-15 years and >15years). The exception is residential streets older than 10 years with small cuts (cut area <10% of section area). However, the cumulative effect of multiple small cuts is equivalent to a section with large cuts.
· On average, the PCI drops by 30% if the cut area is greater than 10% of the section area.
· Cuts do more damage to new (< 10 years) pavements than older (≥10years) pavements.
This results in an average percent reduction of the remaining service life of approximately 33% for new pavements and 17% for old pavements.
These findings were used to develop a fee schedule for the City of Pacifica that is shown in the table below:
As noted above and will be discussed more during the Study Session presentation, although individual small cuts show less significant difference, there is a cumulative impact from multiple small cuts. Over time, this impact will be equivalent to a section with large cuts (10% or greater).
The fee calculation (as shown in the Study) accounts for this by having the small cuts pay a “fair share” for this cumulative effect by dividing the small cut fee total by 10%. Additionally, because pavement cuts cause “slumping” of the soil 2 feet beyond the cut area, this area also needs to be accounted for to assess the correct impact to the pavement. For example, a 4’x4’ cut has the impact of an 8’x8’ cut due to this slumping. The following is an example of a 4’x’4 pavement cut fee for a residential pavement 10 years old or older:
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$1 x (4+4) x (4+4)/0.1 = $640
Next Steps Related to Pavement Fees
- Waste Truck Fees - Staff will discuss costs related to waste vehicles and City pavements with Recology and the City Attorney’s Office as part of current Franchise Agreement discussions with Recology. Staff will return to Council following these discussions with fee options for consideration at a future meeting.
- Construction Vehicle Impact Fees and Utility Cut Fees - Recommended fees related to Construction Vehicle Impact Fee and Utility Cut Fees will be brought to Council for recommendation of adoption at the upcoming yearly budget discussion on Fee Schedule adoption. Recommendations for reducing fees will also be provided, as noted earlier in this report.
Other Cities’ Fees Related to Utility Cuts and Waste/Construction Vehicles:
As discussed earlier in this report, utility cut and vehicle impact fees can only be assessed following a study based on scientific data that correlates pavement damage to pavement trenching and construction and waste truck street use, pursuant to State law. Due to differences in pavement conditions, number of streets and other jurisdiction specific data, an “apples to apples” comparison of these fees is not possible and would not be a justification for charging the fee as fees must be based on scientific data as related to a particular city. Many cities do charge these fees and information related to other cities’ fees can be found in Attachments 3,4 and 5. For Council’s information, the fees developed through the recent NCE pavement Studies are on the lower to mid end of the available fee information shown on these Attachments. Approximate fees on the lowest and highest end of the other jurisdiction’s available information are noted below:
· Waste Truck Impact Fee - Belmont $200,000/year, Walnut Creek $1,800,000/year · Heavy Construction Truck Fee - Citrus Heights $0.72/sf, San Francisco $9.95/sf · Utility Cut Fee (upper end) - Modesto $2.50/sf, Los Angles $19.50/sf RELATION TO CITY COUNCIL GOALS AND WORK PLAN:
Approval of these actions is consistent with the following Council adopted Goals:
· Stewardship of City Infrastructure: includes repairing/replacing outdated city facilities such as city hall, the libraries, fire stations, etc., improving streets, and responding to sea level rise.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact from this action. The completed Studies provide justification for the City to implement these fees as noted in the report. If the City and Recology of the Coast agree to include a payment to the City to cover the costs associated with waste truck impacts in an amended Franchise Agreement, then the City could receive an additional $695,000 yearly for the City’s pavement program. Data has not been compiled related to past yearly numbers of utility trench cuts or total amount of building square footage related to heavy construction truck impact fees. However, staff has estimated heavy construction impact fees could range from Pacifica City Council 7
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$10,000 to $60,000 per year depending on development levels. Utility cut fees could generate $100,000 to $200,000 per year depending on if large PG&E or telecom projects are completed.
For example, the large PG&E project recently completed on Oddstad and Terra Nova would have resulted in approximately $100,000 worth of pavement fees due to the extensive pavement cutting during the project. Should the City decide to charge these fees, the fees cannot exceed the amounts set forth in the Studies and the fees must be charged equally unless the Council has a justifiable policy basis for lowering the fee for certain types of fee payers, as noted earlier in the report.
ORIGINATED BY:
Engineering
ATTACHMENT LIST:
Attachment 1 - Waste & Construction (Heavy) Vehicle Impact Study (PDF) Attachment 2 - Utility Cut Study (PDF)
Attachment 3 – Other Cities' Waste Vehicle Impact Fees (PDF) Attachment 4 – Other Cities' Heavy (Construction) Vehicles (PDF) Attachment 5 - Other Cities' Utility Cut Fees (PDF)