Dana Point council hires Matrix Consulting for user‑fee study for planning and building fees

The Dana Point City Council on June 16 authorized a professional services agreement with Matrix Consulting Group to conduct a user‑fee study covering the city’s planning, building and engineering fees.

Senior staff (Miss Shelton) said the city issued a request for proposals in April, received six proposals and is recommending Matrix based on qualifications and interviews. The recommended agreement amount was described in the meeting as "just over $30,000," and staff said funding is available in the current fiscal‑year 2026 budget.

Kushbu Engel, the Matrix project manager present at the meeting, described a three‑person team that would perform a comparative analysis of peer jurisdictions, conduct time‑and‑effort studies for each fee line item, and produce a proposed fee schedule and a tool to ease annual updates. Engel said the typical process includes staff interviews, detailed timing assessments, vetting assumptions, and an analysis of fiscal impact over the annual workload; the firm estimated a four‑to‑five month timeline for completion.

Councilmembers asked whether the study would examine overlapping fees when multiple entitlements are processed together and whether the firm would compare Dana Point to nearby municipalities. Shelton and Engel confirmed both items are in scope: the study will consider structuring fees to avoid duplicate charges for projects that require multiple entitlements and will present comparative data from other jurisdictions with caveats about different permit definitions.

A council member moved to approve the recommendation and another seconded the motion; the council approved it by voice vote. Individual mover/second and roll‑call tallies were not specified in the transcript.

Staff and the consultant said the study will help normalize fee categories, identify outliers and produce defensible, fully burdened rates based on staff time, salaries, overhead and comparable jurisdictions.