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Planning director proposes tiered fee schedule; commission gives positive referral
Summary
Danbury planning staff proposed replacing flat fees with a tiered schedule that scales by project type and size and would raise some fees (example: large zoning permits from ~$525 to ~$900). The commission voted to forward the proposal to the Zoning Commission for public hearing.
The Danbury Planning Commission voted to issue a positive Section 8‑3(a) referral to the Zoning Commission on a proposed overhaul of the planning and zoning fee schedule. Planning Director Waleed Alpake presented the staff recommendation to move from mostly flat fees to a tiered structure that better aligns fees with project scale and staff time.
Waleed told commissioners that "our fee schedule in terms of the content did not change since 2016" and that the current flat fees mean small projects and very large projects are charged the same amount. He presented examples from benchmarking against eight comparable cities and said the combined planning and zoning operation showed structural revenue shortfalls: staff and operating costs running roughly $520,000 against planning revenues reported at about $256,000, creating an annual shortfall the director described as "about almost 200,000 a year" and a larger combined deficit he characterized as "almost 1.5".
Under the proposal, many application types would move to tiered fees. Examples discussed: larger zoning permit applications could move from roughly $525 to about $900 in higher tiers; text‑only zoning amendments would be proposed at $850 while map amendments would be higher to cover GIS/mapping costs (Waleed said mapping alone can cost at least $1,000); variances would be split (residential ~$160; commercial/industrial ~$460); site‑plan fees would differentiate residential (base $200 plus $50 per unit) from nonresidential charges based on square footage. Waleed also proposed raising fees for zoning letters (proposed $175 residential; $250 commercial) and charging double fees for applications submitted after violations, citing recent state law changes.
Commissioners asked whether the increases are sufficient to cover time‑consuming applications and whether the schedule includes mechanisms to add extra cost recovery for unusual expenses; Waleed replied that some additional costs (public notice, mapping) are already charged separately and that staff plans to evaluate the new schedule after about a year and monitor the impact alongside a digitization project for online applications.
A motion for a positive referral was made and seconded; with no substantive opposition the commission voted to forward the fee‑schedule amendments to the Zoning Commission for public hearing.
