Development Fee Restructuring

Albemarle County is working on a project to identify best practices regarding fee structures and methodologies and restructure the County’s development fees. This project started by examining the current fees and comparing/contrasting them with 7 benchmark localities.

The goals of this project include:

1. consolidate the fees into one unified fee schedule in one place within the County code,
2. simplify fees so they are easier for customers to understand and staff to administer,
3. consolidate and align the fees to be consistent with the staff efforts required while maintaining projected revenue levels, and
4. adopt the fee structure in such a way as to provide the option to amend as needed.
5. implement the new fee structure prior to implementation of the new Community Development System (CDS), and implement the structure concurrent with that system implementation.

Why Review the Fees Now?

This unified fee structure is being done in advance of implementing a new Community Development System (CDS) that will replace County View, our system to track and review development applications. A simplified and consolidated fee schedule with fewer fee categories aligned across all the development codes will be easier to implement.

Highlights of Proposed Changes to the Fee Schedule

Newspaper and Mailing Notice Requirements

The current fees have not kept up with the increasing costs of postage and advertising in the newspaper. To better address these fees, we propose the fee paid for notice be changed to the actual cost for the advertisement (when an advertisement is applicable) and the actual cost of the postage (for mailings). The initial application fee will include a standard administrative fee for the notice. The actual costs for notice will be charged following the mailings and prior to the issuance of related permits.

Bundled and Tiered Single-Family Residential Fee Structure

To consolidate and simplify fees, we are bundling fees for building permits for single-family residential applications into 6 different categories or tiers, based on the size of the home. Currently, these fees are based on $0.58 per square foot for finished plus $0.18 per square foot (ft² ) for unfinished (e.g. decks, porches) plus $0.05 per gross square feet (minus area of unfinished basement) for plan review.

We are proposing 6 tiers of fees:

• up to 1,500 ft²
• 1,500-2,500 ft²
• 2,501-3,500 ft²
• 3,501-4,500 ft²
• 4,501-7,500 ft²
• above 7,500 ft²

This type of fee structure provides a break for smaller homes which typically have fewer and quicker inspections while charging higher costs for larger homes which typically require more and longer inspections.

Fee Consistency

Through this work to consolidate and simplify the fees, we found there is inconsistency in fees for bond transactions (establishing, replacing a bond, etc.) and for appeals of decisions under these regulations. The proposed unified fee schedule addresses these inconsistencies.

Payment Timing

We are recommending payments for rezoning and special use permit applications be made with the initial application rather than at approval. This will allow the review to begin once the application is deemed complete. Fees for notices related to these applications will be charged once the cost is determined.

Rounding to the Nearest Dollar

As a result of fee increases over the years, some resulting fees include dollars and cents ($118.86 for a letter of revision) or uneven numbers ($562 or $331 for example). We are proposing to round fees to the nearest dollar ending in “0” or "5".