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Peoria staff outline multi-year fee review; development fees modeled for a roughly 15% increase to reach cost recovery
Summary
Staff told council it is updating development and department fees in a rolling three‑year schedule and presented a preliminary model that would raise some building and site fees to recover program costs; staff proposed a tiered approach for large site-development permits and new industrial pretreatment fees.
City staff detailed a planned multi‑year update to municipal fees, saying the administration will move to a rolling, three‑year review cycle and presented preliminary models that would change several development and program fees.
The approach and rationale Staff said chapter 27 of Peoria’s code contains the city’s fee schedule and that the council’s two governing policies — Council Policy 1‑11 (community-benefit fee policy) and Council Policy 1‑12 (development services fee policy) — govern whether fees are set at partial or full cost recovery. Staff told council many fees have not been updated in years and that inflation, higher operating costs and new program responsibilities now justify a comprehensive review.
A staff model circulated during the session used three years of historical revenues and costs, added projected staffing and overhead (including a newly wrapped position to support permitting software) and then calculated the percentage change required to restore prior net positions. In an example for building permits staff showed a calculation that produced a draft recommendation near a 15% increase to return to historical break‑even.
Staff described additional changes under review, including: - Moving some department fees into a policy band that allows staff to set the actual fee within a percent recovery range and report those figures in the budget book; - Replacing single‑percentage site‑development permit charges (current 3% of project value) with a tiered fee schedule for very large projects to avoid disproportionate charges on very high cost civil projects; - Creating a new industrial pretreatment fee to fund the agency responsibilities of an industrial pretreatment program; and - Reassessing records‑request and body‑camera redaction fees to reflect actual staff costs.
Public process and next steps Staff said it will finalize the fee forecast, conduct sensitivity analysis (comparing peer cities), post public notice for 60 days and present recommended code and fee changes for council approval. If adopted, staff will implement the new fees concurrent with the adopted budget and supporting ordinances.
Ending Council members asked for clarifications on specific fee impacts and staff said the projections remain model‑based until the full sensitivity and peer comparison work is complete. Staff emphasized the intention to align fees with cost recovery policies and to avoid pricing Peoria out of the market for large development projects.
