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County adopts new planning fee schedule after cost study; appeal fees left unchanged
Summary
After a Revenue & Cost Specialists study, the Board approved planning and development fee updates intended to recover more of the department’s full business costs; supervisors kept appeal fees at current levels and asked staff to link future updates to streamlining progress.
The Board of Supervisors adopted a revision to the county’s unified fee schedule on Tuesday after reviewing a comprehensive fee study of the Community Development & Infrastructure (CDI) planning division.
Consultants from Revenue & Cost Specialists worked with county staff to create fully burdened hourly rates for planning positions, allocate staff time to services and identify a roughly $2.6 million annual subsidy for planning‑related personal‑choice services that had been covered by the general fund. The consultant’s recommendations would recover about $800,000 of that shortfall by adjusting development‑review, zoning, and some housing‑program fees while leaving certain long‑range planning and monitoring fees subsidized to avoid sharp cost shocks for applicants.
Key changes included converting some low‑level deposit arrangements into flat fees for transparency, clarifying chargeable tasks, and modest increases on several discretionary items. Building plan‑check and permit fees were left largely unchanged because they already recovered near‑100% of costs. Staff emphasized the fee changes were legally defensible and limited by state law where applicable.
Supervisor Cummings expressed concern about proposed increases to appeal fees and asked that those not increase; the board ultimately moved forward with the consultant recommendations but voted to retain current appeal fees rather than adopting the proposed increases.
Supervisors asked staff to link future fee adjustments to process improvements under the county’s Streamlined Santa Cruz initiative, noting that greater efficiency and higher permit throughput could reduce per‑permit costs.
What happens next: Fees take effect 60 days after adoption per the Government Code; staff will monitor implementation and return as part of annual/biennial fee reviews.
