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Lebanon council raises select planning and engineering fees, adopts updated fee schedule
Summary
Council adopted Resolution 2025-05, revising the fee schedule to increase per-acre site-engineered plan review fees and to establish higher code-interpretation fees when escalated to the Planning Commission; staff explained purpose and likely limited fiscal impact.
The City Council voted to adopt an updated city fee schedule (Resolution 2025-05) that raises two categories of fees for planning and engineering services.
Finance and planning staff told the council the city proposes raising the per-acre charge in engineering site-engineered plan review from $350 to $500 per acre while keeping the base rate the same. For planning, staff proposed changing the code-interpretation fee to $750 for administrative review and $1,500 if the applicant requests escalation to the Planning Commission. Staff said the higher fee for Planning Commission review reflects the equivalent workload, notifications and packet preparation required for a public hearing.
Planning staff explained code interpretations are the city's formal statement about how the municipal code is applied and are typically sought when an applicant wants the city's official position; staff noted the application for Planning Commission review has historically required comparable effort. "We're putting the application fees to be similar to those of the other development level applications because it is a similar level of work," the planning staff said.
Councilors asked whether the higher fee creates an incentive to seek an initial administrative review and then appeal; staff confirmed in practice that path could be cheaper and explained the appeal fee structure and that applicants choose their review path at the start of the process. The finance director said the anticipated overall fiscal impact is small because these types of applications are infrequent; site-plan fee changes might capture larger, time-consuming reviews when they occur.
The council voted to adopt Resolution 2025-05 and repeal the prior fee schedule in Resolution 2024-19. The motion passed with an affirmative vote; staff will implement the new fees per the adopted resolution.
