Bozeman adopts engineering infrastructure review fees to recover development‑review costs

The Bozeman City Commission unanimously adopted a resolution establishing a fee schedule for transportation and engineering infrastructure review, a change staff said will shift development‑review costs from utility ratepayers to applicants and encourage higher‑quality initial submissions.

Staff said the fee schedule is designed to recover the city’s cost of providing engineering review services and to reduce repeated rounds of low‑quality resubmissions that extend review timelines. Nick Ross, director of transportation and engineering, told the commission the division spent about $1.5 million on development‑review work in recent years and collected little or no application revenue for those services before the new schedule.

Under the adopted approach staff presented, an initial base review fee (staff described the number as roughly $1,650) will be combined with a variable fee tied to the number of plan sheets (staff used a half‑hour per sheet estimate for initial review). Ross gave an example that the typical plan set the city sees averages about 26 sheets; with the base fee plus the variable per‑sheet charge staff estimated a typical infrastructure review would total about $2,700. Resubmissions would be priced at about one hour of staff time per revised sheet and construction changes would be charged at a higher rate (roughly two hours per sheet) to reflect the added field coordination and review time.

Ross said staff chose the model to be fair, transparent and straightforward to administer; the project‑document system the city uses will tabulate sheets and resubmissions so fees can be calculated automatically. The director also asked for an April 1 effective date to allow staff time to update billing systems.

Commissioners supported the resolution. Deputy Mayor Morrison described the model as incentivizing better upfront work while recovering costs from applicants rather than general ratepayers. The motion to adopt the resolution passed unanimously (recorded roll call: Commissioner Magic: Aye; Deputy Mayor Morrison: Aye; Commissioner Boddy: Aye; Commissioner Fisher: Aye; Mayor Cunningham: Aye).

Staff projected that, under past application volumes, the new fees could generate a substantial amount of revenue—staff cited prior‑year volumes that would have produced approximately $1 million in application revenue—but they noted volumes have slowed and future receipts will depend on future development activity. Ross said staff will review fees annually and perform a full cost‑of‑service study every three to five years to ensure the schedule remains appropriate.

Motion to adopt resolution setting fee schedule (mover: not specified; second: not specified). Outcome: approved unanimously. Effective date requested by staff: April 1 (to allow administrative updates).