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 multiplies the fee by two after successive reinspections and caps the charge at a fixed limit.

Staff inserted a placeholder for credit-card and ACH processing fees pending vendor pricing from mybuildingpermit.com. Kory said the city currently pays a large share of card-processing costs and estimated the last figure he reviewed at about $30,000 annually; allowing applicants to pay processing fees would let them use cards for higher-value permits.

The draft also reflects adjustments tied to an interlocal agreement with South County Fire: "Their fees from this fee schedule go towards their budget for fire protection," Kory said, and the city worked with the fire agency to adapt the schedule to local administration. Another notable line item is a 25% plan-review fee for commercial projects that aligns with the ILA.

To derive the fees, staff calculated a fully loaded hourly cost that included rent for office space (Kory cited roughly $46,000 annually for second-floor rent), salaries and benefits, professional services, support costs and an assumed 3% CPI; the resulting hourly rate is $143, up from a prior $137. Kory told the committee the city implemented PermitTrack in March to track staff time more precisely but does not yet have enough data to fully rely on the system for long-term adjustments.

Council members pressed staff on several operational questions. Will Chen asked what payment options would remain available if applicants elected to pay transaction costs; Kory said ACH and other methods would still be offered. Susan Payne asked for benchmarking and whether Edmonds’ hourly rate and per-permit fees align with neighbors; Kory said he compared five jurisdictions and found differences in methodology — some use valuation-based fees while Edmonds uses fee-type calculations — and that "there's really apples and oranges when looking at the fees." He cited Shoreline and Lynnwood as examples of neighboring schedules and said Issaquah ‘‘didn't make the spreadsheet.''

Committee members also asked about the city technology fee and whether it reflects rising software and hardware costs. Kory said the tech fee is primarily for software and that staff would re-check the calculation to ensure it matches technology costs.

On process, staff said pre-application meetings include a written staff report and a fee, while Development Review Committee (DRC) meetings are informal, typically last about 45 minutes and are not currently charged. The committee discussed whether to charge for certain preliminary reviews, and whether routine checklists and some lower-level inquiries could be handled with automation or AI while staff focus on higher-level land-use analysis.

No formal vote was taken by the committee. Members generally supported forwarding the fee schedule to full council for consideration; staff said the schedule is intended for adoption Jan. 1 but can be amended mid-cycle if major legislative changes occur.

Committee members recommended staff provide the strikethrough (redline) version of the fee schedule to the committee and said the item should be presented to full council, with the possibility of placing it on the consent agenda if no members request separate consideration.