Hearing Examiner issues a mixed ruling on Transportation Impact Fees SEPA review

This afternoon the Seattle Hearing Examiner issued a long-awaited ruling on an appeal of the city’s SEPA Determination of Non-significance (DNS) for its first step in establishing Transportation Impact Fees (TIFs). He found that the city had impermissibly left a section of the SEPA checklist blank, and remanded it back to the city to at least partially complete it.

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Update on Transportation Impact Fees hearing

Last week I reported that the City of Seattle’s Hearing Examiner had reopened the hearing on the city’s SEPA Determination of Nonsignificance, the first step in establishing Transportation Impact Fees in Seattle. Hearing Examiner Ryan Vancil asked the parties to come back in so he could pose some additional questions to them that he felt weren’t thoroughly briefed in their filings to-date. That meeting was this afternoon; it lasted only twenty minutes, enough time for Vancil to lay out his four questions and for the parties to agree on a schedule for additional briefs.

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