Edmonds committee reviews development fee overhaul; staff targets Jan. 1 adoption

City staff presented a comprehensive update to Edmonds’ development-fee schedule during the council committee meeting on Oct. 7, saying the changes reflect increased staff time required for plan review, inspections and administration.

"What are development fees? Basically, these are the fees we take in to pay for permitting and all the administration administrative pieces, inspection pieces, plan review," said Ted Kory, the city’s building official, who led the presentation. Kory said state law limits fees to recouping the city’s costs: "RCW 82.02.020 is pretty explicit about that. We can't raise fees to be ... a moneymaker for the city."

Kory described several substantive changes in the draft schedule. The city added energy-code review fees — roughly one additional hour for residential projects and two for commercial projects — citing the 2018 and 2021 energy-code changes that increased the amount of review calculations and inspection time. The draft also includes an escalated reinspection fee intended to deter repeated failed inspections; the formula…