Melbourne council approves 25% increase in development fees, will review every two years

City Council on May 27 approved a sweeping update to development-related user fees that raises most permit and plan-review charges about 25% and adds several new fees, Councilmember Russo said during the meeting.

The increase, approved as Resolution 43-56, affects building permits, plan reviews and zoning applications, and adds a pre-application meeting fee, a fee for repeated plan-review rounds beyond the fourth review, and a modest per-permit review charge to help fund a new shared reviewer position in community development and engineering. The council also approved raising the technology fee tied to the EnerGov permitting system from $10 to $15 per building permit.

City officials said the changes aim to keep development review workloads from being shifted onto general taxpayers and to better cover staff time devoted to development reviews.

“Since we looked at the first five years there was a CPI increase of 21% and we’re really now into the sixth year,” said Cindy Dittmer, who presented the proposal. “So what we’ve proposed in this…