Mitigation Fee Act: mitigating vehicular traffic impacts.

Senator Becker’s measure reshapes the Mitigation Fee Act by tying any lower-rate fee for housing developments to three explicit criteria—indicating a closer link between transit access, nearby amenities, and parking design and the assessed traffic impacts of new housing.

Under the enacted text, the lower-rate threshold rests on three conditions: first, the development is in a transit priority area and a major transit stop, if planned, is programmed to be completed before or within one year of the housing project’s scheduled completion and occupancy; second, the project lies within a half-mile of three or more specified facilities, including supermarkets, parks, community centers, pharmacies, medical clinics or hospitals, public libraries, schools, licensed childcare facilities, and restaurants; third, the development provides no more than one onsite parking space for zero- to two-bedroom units and two onsite spaces for three- or more-bedroom units. The prior criterion related to convenience retail proximity is replaced by this broader proximity standard.

The measure retains, in its enacted form, a provision allowing a local agency to charge a fee that does not reflect a lower rate if it makes written findings that the housing development, even with the qualifying characteristics, would not generate fewer automobile trips than a comparable development without those characteristics, with findings supported by substantial evidence in the project record. This creates an explicit pathway for setting a higher-than-lower-rate fee when supported by substantial record evidence.

The bill also revises land-dedication requirements tied to traffic mitigation. A local agency may not impose a land dedication to mitigate vehicular traffic impacts or to achieve a traffic level of service or roadway width, but may impose a land dedication if the project is not in a transit priority area and has a 500-foot-or-longer frontage, or if a substantial-evidence finding supports that the deduction is necessary to preserve public health, safety, and welfare (including pedestrians, cyclists, and children), or to construct public improvements such as sidewalks or sewers. Definitions are updated to clarify “housing development” (not less than 50 percent residential floor space with common ownership and financing), “land dedication” (exaction of property for public use without compensation), and related terms; the definition of “major transit stop” expands to include planned stops in the applicable regional transportation plan whose construction is programmed to be completed within a year of project completion. The act also adds a no-reimbursement clause, signaling that local agencies bear the costs of implementing these changes.

Implementation of these changes centers on the housing development approval process, requiring explicit findings in the project record to justify the lower-rate fee and to support any contrary findings under the (b) provision. The transit-priority-area criterion ties eligibility to regional transit planning timelines, and the proximity and parking criteria require systematic mapping and documentation of nearby facilities and unit configurations. The measure imposes a state-mandated local program with no state reimbursement, affecting local budgeting and administrative processes.

Together, the modifications align fee setting with a defined set of transit-oriented and amenities-driven conditions while preserving a separate avenue to justify higher fees through substantial-evidence findings. They also recalibrate tools for balancing traffic mitigation with project design, restrict certain land-dedication practices, and broaden the definitional framework around transit infrastructure and housing development. The policy context centers on clarifying when a lower-rate mitigation fee may apply, situating housing near transit-ready infrastructure and community amenities, and shaping how local agencies and developers plan and document project-level traffic effects.