Weber County surveyor proposes higher subdivision review fees, shifts monument work to cities

Weber County surveyor's office staff on April 14 asked commissioners to approve a series of code and fee changes intended to cover rising review costs for subdivision plats and to alter how the county handles monument improvement agreements with cities.

The proposal would change how the county charges for final local entity plats (from a flat fee to charging per sheet), raise the basic final-plat review fee and per-lot charges, and remove monument construction and escrow services from county interlocal agreements — instead offering a paid verification visit for monuments at $150 each.

The changes matter because surveyor staff say current fees do not cover the time and hourly rates needed to do technical plat reviews. Steve Collier of the surveyor's office told commissioners that new development patterns, including Infrastructure Financing Districts (IFDs), have increased staff workload and altered how plats arrive for review. Collier said, "So the IFD is the Infrastructure Financing District, kind of a spinoff from the Public Infrastructure Financing District, except no longer allows the governing body to approve or dictate anything." He argued those structures mean some plats now cover multiple, noncontiguous areas and merit per-sheet billing.

Details of the proposal and staff estimates

- Current fee structure: the office identified the existing fee as $400 plus $25 per lot or $50 per condominium unit. - Proposed fees: change to a $500 base review fee plus $50 per lot or unit, and charge final local entity plats by sheet instead of per plat. Collier said the office also proposes a reduced flat-change fee equal to roughly half the initial review fee. - Estimated costs: surveyor staff estimated their internal breakdown for a typical final plat review at about $715 plus about $48.75 per lot on labor/hourly-cost calculations (with many hourly tasks billed at roughly $65/hour). For preliminary plats staff estimated roughly $200 of cost and recommended retaining a modest preliminary-plat fee (about $100 billed as an on-request service). - Monument work and interlocal agreements: staff proposed removing monument improvement agreement services (city escrow, procuring and supplying monuments, and multi-year monitoring) from county interlocal agreements. Instead, the county would verify monument locations on request for approximately $150 per monument and leave construction oversight to cities with their public-works processes. - Cross-subsidy and recorder fees: staff explained recorder–surveyor fee accounting is constrained by state audit rules and that recorder fee surpluses have historically offset surveyor deficits. Collier cautioned the funding is restricted for these recorder and surveyor purposes but acknowledged the arrangement effectively spreads some costs across recorder users.

Commissioner response and next steps

Commissioner Gage Foreman cautioned against pushing fees toward private-market levels, warning that doing so could invite legislative action to remove local review authority. Foreman said, "If you keep going this direction... you will see legislation that'll say, take you guys out of the equation." Commissioner Jim Harvey said he was satisfied with the analysis, commenting, "You put a lot of thought and energy into this, and, I don't have any issues." Other commissioners pressed staff on who ultimately bears higher costs (developers or homebuyers) and on the legal limits posed by state rules for fee use.

Staff said they were not recommending a larger increase that would approach private-sector survey costs, and emphasized the proposal is intended to be a modest step toward cost recovery. Collier and other surveyor's office staff asked commissioners for direction to draft ordinance changes and to revise interlocal agreements with affected cities.

No formal vote was taken on the fee or interlocal changes during the work session. Commissioners asked staff to draft revised fee language and interlocal amendments reflecting the proposed per-sheet billing and the removal of monument-improvement escrow, and to return with the revised language and more precise cost estimates for final approval at a future meeting.

Community and procedural context

The office characterized the recommended changes as partly technical (aligning code text and signature blocks to the current subdivision code) and partly financial (addressing a structural shortfall in review-cost recovery). The surveyor explained that the rise of IFDs — legal mechanisms that allow noncontiguous petitioned areas and change who must sign petitions — has affected how plats are prepared and how much staff time is required to review them.

Ending

County staff will prepare amended fee schedules and revised interlocal agreement language and return to the commission for a formal decision; until a formal ordinance or agreement is approved, current fees and interlocal terms remain in effect.