Title
Agenda Item:
Ordinance Amending Land Use Fees for Pre-Submission Meetings
Body
Issue:
Whether to amend Land Use application fee schedule to eliminate "minor" presubmission conference fee category. Result would be that all parties requesting a presubmission conference would pay fee of $240 that is now applicable only to "major" projects.
Committtee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager's Recommendation:
Move to approve fee amendment ordinance on first reading as proposed and place on next Council agenda for second and final reading.
Staff Contact:
Todd Stamm, Planning Manager, Community Planning and Develoment Department, 360.753.8597
Presenter(s):
None - Consent Calendar Item
Background and Analysis:
For over two decades the City of Olympia has offered 'presubmission conferences' to prospective development applicants. Presubmission conferences are formal meetings where the City's Site Plan Review Committee (SPRC), which is composed of staff that review major developments, meets with prospective development applicants to inform the requesting party about development review processes, fees and standards of the City. Although no decisions are made, these meetings are open to the public and result in a written record. Although the number has declined in the last few years, on average the City hosts about 100 such meetings each year with about one-quarter to one-third leading to actual development applications.
In 2004 the City of Olympia evaluated its costs of delivering services associated with reviewing land use development proposals. That study led to adopting a two-tiered fee structure for presubmission conference requests. The two-tiered fee structure recognized that for proposed develpoments that would not be subject to the State Environmental Policy Act, which generally are those of less than 10 housing units and less than 8,000 square feet of commercial floor area, the issues to be discussed were less complicated. For these smaller proposals fewer staff attend and meetings usually range from 30 to 45 minutes. For larger project proposals all members of SPRC attend and meetings range from 45 minutes to an hour. Generally less than half of the presubmission conference requests fall in the smaller-project category. Because such conferences are an efficient means of achieving better informed applicants and reduce the City's costs of subsequent development review, the City elected to establish presubmission conference fees that recover only abut 10% of the full cost of this service. This approach led to the current $100 fee for presubmission conferences for 'minor' (small) projects, and $240 for larger projects.
Nonetheless, it has been staff's experience that preparing for and hosting presubmission meetings for smaller projects sometimes requires as much or more staff resources than for larger projects. In particular, such prospective applicants often are not assisted by professional designers during early stages and seek more information and assistance from City staff. Therefore, staff now proposes that the lower $100 fee for small-project presubmission meetings be eliminated and that $240, which is the current fee for large-project presubmission meetings, be adopted as the fee for requesting any presubmission conference.
An increase from $100 to $240 for a prospective small project applicant may result in fewer such requests. Such prospective applicants may instead seek information through a less efficient, less public, and less well-documented approach. However, in staff's opinion the fee increase is not so substantial that many serious applicants will be deterred from requesting a conference, nor will it result in a significant change in City revenue or costs of service.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
No known concerns.
Options:
1. Approve attached ordinance as proposed amending fee schedule to merge minor and major presubmission meetings into one higher fee and pass to second reading.
2. Do not approve fee amendment; 'minor' presubmission request fee would continue to be $100.
Financial Impact:
Option 1: Slight increase in revenue (substantially less than $5,000), and possible slight decrease in service demand.
Option 2: None