Standard guidelines that determine what street improvements developers must pay for to accommodate new subdivisions were aired this week to the McCall City Council.
The city began developing the guidelines in December 2023 to increase transparency for developers while also improving safety on city streets and long-term planning.
“We realized we don’t really have the best framework and code to guide developers through,” City and Sustainability Planner Meredith Todd said.
“There are many ways to interpret the code, and this will help standardize what we see from developers and what we expect to see from them when they’re impacting our transportation systems,” Todd said.
The guidelines, which are expected to be adopted by the council at a future meeting, would apply to all new development proposals in McCall unless specifically exempted.
City: lack of guidelines complicates process
Currently, no such guidelines exist, which can complicate the permitting process and result in inconsistencies from one application to another.
“We don’t have a list today, we just have really good ideas,” Todd said. “Sometimes there’s a lot of pushback, where a development team might say, well, ’I don’t feel like XYZ analysis in this situation is warranted.’”
The guidelines funnel all development applications into completing either a traffic memo or a traffic impact analysis.
Traffic memos would be completed by developments that generate fewer than 200 vehicle trips per day, less than 20 new residential units, or industrial uses of less than 10,000 square feet. Developments that exceed those thresholds would be required to complete a traffic analysis.
The key difference between the two reports is that the analysis would include existing traffic counts at nearby intersections to determine if off-site infrastructure improvements are triggered by the development.
Both reports would include a general inventory of transportation infrastructure in the area, site access, and crash history on relevant roadways and intersections.
Accurate peak traffic counts
The guidelines also specify when traffic counts are completed to ensure the data captures McCall’s busy season tourism. One count would be required on weekdays during peak morning and evening hours, while another count would be required at peak hours on Saturday.
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In recent years, traffic counts included with some development applications, including a Stor-It Self Storage expansion on Elo Road, have raised questions about whether the data accurately reflects the busiest traffic periods in McCall.
“We want the counts to be during July,” City Engineer Morgan Stroud said, adding that counts can be adjusted to reflect summer traffic volumes even if complete during another time of year.
The counts would also be catered to by the type of development and the expected use of the buildings. If half of the homes in a development are expected to be short-term rentals, the traffic count data would reflect that difference in use.
Long-term developments phased over many years, like the proposed Pine Creek Ranch Subdivision in McCall, would be required to update the traffic analysis every five years until buildout is completed.
“You could have an initial study that doesn’t warrant a traffic light or a turn lane or something like that, but because they’ve taken the time to get to that next phase, seven years go by, and then maybe there is a turn light or a traffic light that comes into play,” Todd said.
The guidelines were developed by city staff in conjunction with Kittleson & Associates, a Boise engineering firm.
