Oviedo City Council members Monday unanimously approved without discussion new fees on development to help pay for wider roads, better sidewalks and more bike lanes.

The mobility fees take effect Dec. 16 and replace Oviedo’s impact fees and Seminole County’s mobility fee. Developers pay the fees when applying for city permits to build new structures or expand existing ones — such as homes or businesses.

Revenue from the city’s mobility fee will help fund infrastructure projects through 2045 to relieve traffic congestion and encourage people to move around in ways other than cars — such as closing existing gaps on the city’s network of sidewalks and bicycle pathways.

“We’re not just looking at roads. We’re looking at the whole transportation system,” council member Natalie Teuchert said Tuesday.

Oviedo residents have long complained about the city’s growing traffic woes, which often cause gridlock along main corridors — including Mitchell Hammock Road, State Road 434 and County Road 419.

Although the city’s population since 2020 has jumped 5% to nearly 42,000 residents, it can have up to an estimated 65,000 people driving through, eating at restaurants or working within its core every day, according to a consultant’s report. Oviedo sits just north of the University of Central Florida campus — with nearly 70,000 students — and nearby research park.

The idea behind mobility fees is for businesses and facilities that draw a heavy volume of daily traffic — such as convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and hotels — to “pay their fair share” for the impact to city infrastructure, Mayor Megan Sladek said Tuesday.

“These cars are using public facilities,” Sladek said. “But it’s not so much to address roads, but to address moving people by fixing the sidewalks and adding more bike lanes.”

The fees would vary based on the size and impact a project would have on transportation corridors.

For example, a developer building a new house would pay up to $2,728 per 1,000 square feet under the fee. That’s about 28% less than what’s paid now with the combined city transportation impact fee and Seminole mobility fee.

However, the developer of a new convenience store with fuel pumps would pay nearly $47,000 per 1,000 square feet under the fee — nearly 24% more than now.

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That’s because a convenience store of 1,000 square feet with at least 16 fuel pumps can generate as many as 1,238 trips from vehicles a day, according to a city report, while a single-family home can generate just under four vehicle trips a day.

Sladek said it’s not uncommon in the morning to see a line of cars stretching to the street waiting in the Starbucks drive-through off East Mitchell Hammock Road.

Oviedo officials point out that revenue from the county’s mobility fee has long been used by Seminole to fund road projects outside the city. But in December, developers will begin paying one mobility fee — to Oviedo — and the revenue will pay for city projects, officials said.

“We want to make sure that dollars taken from development projects in Oviedo help fund transportation projects in Oviedo,” Teuchert said.

The new fees were adopted as part of the city’s 2045 Mobility Plan, which proposes nearly $300 million in transportation improvements over the next two decades.

Oviedo isn’t the only local government to recently enact mobility fees.

On Sept. 9, Osceola County commissioners adopted “mobility fees” at one of the highest levels statewide.

Osceola leaders said the fees — taking effect in June — will provide critical funding for road and rail improvements in a fast-growing county that often sees traffic gridlock.