Planning Fees

[MikeTurnrose]

I did a submittal last year for a four parcel subdivision on the San Mateo County coast and the owner paid a fee around the same as what Steve said. It's ridiculous. And people complain about our fees!

[Jim Frame]

It's easy to claim that California development fees are outrageous, ridiculous, rapacious, etc. -- no one likes writing checks to public agencies. But there's a lot of public benefit attributable to those fees. It shows up as communities that are developed to much higher standards than those found in many parts of the nation. I place a high value on the water, sewer, and drainage systems in my city; the well-designed, well-built and well-maintained streets; the parks and recreational facilities and programs; the police and fire services; the social service programs. All of those are supported in some way by development fees.

I lament the inefficiencies endemic to the government agencies that charge those fees, and acknowledge that those inefficiencies are sometimes -- though certainly not in all cases -- worse than those found in private industry. That said, I wouldn't want my city government to be run like a lean-and-mean uber-competitive business, because the lean part isn't compatible with long-term stability, and the mean part tends to pit employer against employee.

My sister lives in Arco, Idaho. If they have development fees, they must be pretty low, because the development standards certainly are. Housing prices there are also low, but you couldn't pay me to live there.

I'm all for greater efficiency in government, as long as it doesn't compromise quality. But lowering development fees just to make them lower is a sucker's game, and the public loses in the end.

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[dmi]

No one wants to apy for anything. Everyone wants services and they expect the government to do all these wonderful things..... just no one wants to pay for them..... You can thank prop 13 and every other tax cutting measure that has come along...... So the game we play now is to have tax cuts that really cannot be afforded and they we make up the revenue by using fees....

Remember trickle down.....the revenue is diwn trickli ng down from the feds....

BTW, I am not a fan of higher taxrs and higher fees....but there really is no free lunch.....

[E_Page]

As a matter of principle, I believe that these sort of things should be handled mostly as user fees and not supported by general fund.

There is an argument about benefit to the public, but the primary and immediate beneficiary is the developer/landowner. They should pay the vast majority of the costs for review.

But in some areas, or some departments, there are apparent gross inefficiencies rather than marginal ones. There also seems to be a propensity to require too much of a landowner or developer.

One of my clients 3 or 4 years ago was trying to accomplish a split of 19 acres into 4 roughly equal parcels. The County had a new general plan in place that had a GP overlay of 5 acre zoning, where there actual zoning was for 3 acre minimums. They were denied the ability to create 4 lots, and to add insult to injury, had to pay a $2000 rezone fee to change the actual current zoning to match the new General Plan.

They had to provide complete topo of the full acreage, including the undevelopable portions, rather than just for the home sites and driveways. They had to get an arborist and biologist involved although there was no reason to believe there were any endangered frogs or heritage oaks at risk.

Another client had 40 acres, wanted to make 4 parcels of various sizes. Planning at first demanded that a large 5th lot be made and given to the County for recreational purposes. This lot was nearly 30% of the total. With some effort, we were able to convince the County that by requiring the 5th lot on the PM, they were going to force the owner into a different mapping process. The county agreed to having the area dedicated as a undevelopable recreational easement. But last I had heard, they were going back to requiring the 5th lot. That landowner finally gave up due to poor health and (presumably) lack of funds which needed to go to more pressing needs. This at the point I had submitted the final PM.

There is something (more likely a lot of somethings) wrong when you have to tell an older couple trying to divide their property to leave to the kids to not even think about it unless they are willing to put down a minimum of $100K to get it done. The majority of those fees going to agencies who charge as much or more to review consultant's work product as it cost for the consultant to prepare it.

[land butcher]

A couple of years after the passage of Prop 13 I had a lot split map in at a Orange County city. The unlicensed map checker, whom I had to call to decipher her comments, kept me on the phone for almost a hour complaining how prop 13 was making her job harder because the city would not hire anyone and she was over worked.

One of my major complaints with govt agencies is the building inspectors. A few decades ago the building of condos in CA basically ceased due to construction defect lawsuits. I was hired by a general contractor that went after sub UBC projects and their builders. Many of the construction defect complaints were the lack of fire blocks and/or sound deadening panels between the units. I have always wondered how a building inspector, if he is doing his job, could miss such items. Since govt agencies cannot be sued for dereliction of duty, and apparently are not doing their jobs, why do we continue to have building inspectors and inspection fees.

[Jim Frame]

"They had to get an arborist and biologist involved although there was no reason to believe there were any endangered frogs or heritage oaks at risk."

While I have no knowledge of the particular matter Evan cites, it sounds like one of those situations in which the seemingly onerous requirements were imposed after the county learned the hard way -- by ending up on the losing end of a lawsuit -- that due diligence requires an affirmative finding that the risks are not present, even when the chance of the items in question being present are very small.

It is, in effect, insurance. No one likes to pay insurance premiums, but we all do it as a matter of prudent practice. Public agencies are no different. Once they learn of their exposure to a risk, they would be negligent not to protect themselves against it. That may translate to higher development costs, which is appropriate when a discretionary approval is being sought.

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[mpallamary]

Man this stuff reads like a horror story. I have so many pokers in the fire at the moment, I can't see straight. I would love to write an article about these issues. I need to see where my calendar takes me but it is obvious this is an important and sensitive subject.

Thanks all for these valuable contributions.

[E_Page]

Jim, your take on it is probably correct. Unfortunately, governments tend to react in such a way that there is no longer any room for the bureaucrats to use judgment.

There are not likely to be any red-legged frogs on a piece of land with no surface water or elderberry beetles in an area where elderberry bushes won't grow, and trees in the proposed development areas would show on the topo of the homesites and driveways.

The problem with the government one-size-fits-all requirements is that there are often onerous and expensive requirements imposed that serve no purpose in maintaining orderly development, protection of the environment, or protection/service to the public.

[Jim Frame]

Point taken. In fact, I've had some success locally getting certain TPM requirements waived when they didn't make any sense and would add significant cost. However, that success has been based largely upon working relationships with city staff that goes back a decade or two. Absent those relationships, there's often no obvious incentive for staff members to take even small risks when confronting waiver requests.

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