## Facts

- The Town of Guilderland anticipated substantial population growth and determined that new development would increase traffic and require major roadway expansion.
- Concluding existing revenues were insufficient, the Town adopted a local “Transportation Impact Fee Law” (TIFL) to shift a portion of roadway capital costs to new development.
- TIFL required building-permit applicants whose projects would generate additional traffic to pay an impact fee at permit issuance.
- The fee amount was set by a schedule tied to the size and use of the proposed development and was intended to represent the development’s “fair share” of needed roadway improvements.
- Developers could submit an alternative traffic/fee study using TIFL’s prescribed methodology and pay the Town a processing/review charge capped at $4,000.
- TIFL allowed limited credits for certain roadway improvements but excluded credits for “site-related” work and imposed documentation and security requirements for claimed credits.
- Collected fees were placed into a Town trust fund restricted to roadway and transportation capital improvements and expansion, not routine maintenance.
- Builders’ associations and developers challenged TIFL, arguing the Town lacked authority and that state statutes governing highways and municipal finance preempted local road-funding schemes.
- The Appellate Division declared TIFL invalid; the Town appealed to the New York Court of Appeals.

## Issues

1. Whether state legislation regulating the budgeting, financing, and expenditure of highway and roadway improvement funds preempts a town law imposing transportation impact fees on new development.
2. Whether the Town could sustain TIFL as a home-rule land-use regulation despite the state statutory scheme governing roadway funding.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment declaring TIFL invalid.
- The court held that the Legislature intended to occupy the field of roadway funding through comprehensive provisions of the Town Law and Highway Law.
- TIFL was treated as a road-funding mechanism that conflicted with the state scheme by creating a separate trust fund outside the statutory budget process and associated accounting and expenditure controls.
- Because the State’s statutes established a uniform method for budgeting, financing, and spending for roadway improvements, the local impact-fee program was preempted even if framed as land-use regulation.

## Legal Principles

- Local governments may not legislate in a field the Legislature has shown an intent to occupy; field preemption bars additional local regulation even where local authority would otherwise exist.
- Legislative intent to preempt may be inferred from the purpose, number, and specificity of state statutes that together form a comprehensive, uniform scheme.
- When state law comprehensively regulates the budgeting, financing, and expenditure of roadway improvement funds, a municipality may not impose an independent local funding device that bypasses or conflicts with those processes (including by maintaining off-budget dedicated funds).

## Conclusion

New York’s highest court invalidated Guilderland’s transportation impact fee law because the Town Law and Highway Law comprehensively regulate how municipalities budget for, finance, account for, and spend roadway-improvement funds, leaving no room for a parallel local impact-fee funding system.


Albany Area Builders Ass'n v. Town of Guilderland, 74 N.Y.2d 372, 547 N.Y.S.2d 627, 546 N.E.2d 920 (1989)