PUBLIC HEARING AGENDA REQUEST

Sponsor:

 Board of Supervisors Meeting Date:

R. Holder Trumbo, Jr., Chairman,
Scott District Supervisor

July 9, 2009

Staff Lead:

Department:

Kimberley P. Fogle, Assistant Director

Community Development

Topic:  

A Resolution Revising the Department of Community Development’s Fee Schedule to Address Certain Engineering Fees

Topic Description:

The abolition of engineering positions within the Department of Community Development and the resultant outsourcing of engineering technical review has created a need to amend the Community Development fee schedule to reflect the manner in which certain engineering fees are to be billed to applicants.    

Requested Action of the Board of Supervisors:

Conduct a public hearing and consider adoption of the attached resolution. 

Financial Impact Analysis:

The County currently assesses a fixed fee related to the review of projects that is intended to cover the costs of the review by all County review entities, including the engineering component.  The revised schedule provides for the direct payment of engineering technical review fees on an hourly basis to an outside firm under contract to the County at competitive rates approved with the contract. The only fee change to the County’s fee schedule is for floodplain studies.  For those applications, engineering review was the most significant component of the fee and thus, the fee has been reduced to eliminate that review and to solely cover administrative and coordination costs associated with the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) process.  In reviewing other fees for plan review, Staff believes the current fees are in line with the amount of review time spent by other staff reviewers, even with the elimination of the engineering technical review.

The proposed fee approach is directly related to the amount of review time spent by the County’s approved Contractor.  Smaller projects will likely pay smaller fees and the larger more complex projects will pay higher review fees.  Additionally, poor quality plans may also pay higher fees if repetitive reviews are needed.  Part of the approach being explored by staff in the outsourced engineering review is to incorporate a collaborative, iterative component to the comment and response that takes place in plan review.  The goal is to have only two plan submissions, plus signature set.  A Letter to Industry (Attachment #2) was sent to those in our applicants, engineers, and representatives’ database explaining our initial approach to outsourcing engineering technical review.

Identify any other Departments, Organizations or Individuals that would be affected by this request:

Attachments:            

1.      Proposed Fee Schedule

2.      Letter to Industry
 

RESOLUTION

A RESOLUTION REVISING THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT’S FEE SCHEDULE TO ADDRESS CERTAIN ENGINEERING FEES

WHEREAS, the abolition of the engineering positions within Community Development creates a need to make revisions to the Community Development Fee Schedule to reflect changes to the manner in which certain review fees are assessed; and

WHEREAS, the Board of Supervisors wants County fees for required land development applications and associated documents to keep pace with inflation, personnel, processing, and inspection requirements due to application and project complexities, and to maintain effective, quality and responsible service; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors this 9^th day of July 2009, That the Department of Community Development’s fee schedule be revised as reflected in Attachment 1. Proposed Fee Schedule (Zoning, Planning and Environmental Divisions) herein, with an effective date of July 9, 2009.