Paying for Planning

This staff report presents an overview of the county’s planning division fee study, their most current fee schedule, and the memorandum requesting the fee study analysis from an independent firm. Over 50% of their current planning fees recover the general cost of services but do not account for meeting notification or advertising costs, or the environmental health division costs for development review. Recommendations include implementing more equity-based fees or fees variant on project size, and ways to recoup 80-90% of service on most application types. The memorandum shows their previous process and methodology for their annual adjustment of the fee schedule based on regional Consumer Price Index.