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County committee approves updated roads and airports land‑development fees to recover costs
Summary
The committee received a report and approved proposed updates to Roads & Airports land‑development and real‑estate fee schedules to address a projected shortfall and align fees with current staffing costs and work volume.
The Roads and Airports Department presented proposed updates to its land‑development and real‑estate fees May 29, and the committee approved forwarding the revised fee schedule to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration.
Deputy Director Chris Lam explained the changes respond to a $370,000 annual discrepancy between current revenues and staff time required to review planning applications, and cited a 76 percent increase in staff time cost rates since the department last updated planning‑review fees. Lam said about 80 percent of the land‑development work involves encroachment permits for work in the county right‑of‑way and that the department began charging fully cost‑recovery encroachment fees last year. The land‑development planning review fees had not been updated since 2015 and the department identified permit types that lacked fees after a rollout of new application‑tracking software.
Recommended adjustments vary by permit type: typical increases range from about 24 percent to just under 70 percent for many permit fees, with subdivision review fee increases larger (minor subdivision fees up roughly 80–83 percent; major‑subdivision review proposed at about a 200 percent increase). Lam said the major‑subdivision increase translates to roughly a $3,000 increase for larger developers and that most individual fee changes are several hundred dollars to about $1,000. The department recommended publishing an hourly rate for extraordinary plan‑review work and converting the flat $1,200 fee for vacation/abandonment of easements to a deposit plus hourly rate to reflect the research intensity of those reviews.
Supervisors asked for comparative data with peer counties; Lam agreed to include such a comparison when the item returns to the Board. One supervisor noted that, while the percentage increases appear large, the per‑unit impact for a hypothetical 100‑unit subdivision would be modest ($4,427 or about $29.75 per unit, as presented by a supervisor), and supported cost recovery.
The committee voted to approve forwarding the Roads and Airports fee schedule updates to the Board; the item was scheduled for the Board of Supervisors meeting on June 17.
