Planning costs need cutting

Proposals to raise Albemarle’s zoning fees provide a pointed example of the county’s overall conflict between cutting costs and raising revenues.

First, some fairly neutral facts.

The Planning Commission has recommended a new fee schedule that would have developers cover about a third of the county’s costs of processing zoning requests, down from the original proposal to cover 75 percent of costs. In a sense, that creates a system of user fees: The people using the services pay for part of the services. Normally, that’s a fiscally sensible response for government, as it shields the rest of the taxpayers from fully supporting services that they might not benefit from.

Additionally, the county hasn’t reviewed its zoning fees since 1991. That’s nearly two decades — far too long to go without an adjustment to ensure that fees are fair and equitable.

And finally, county planning officials say Albemarle’s fees are minimal compared to other counties’.

But …

Critics are right that imposing higher fees in this economy could have a dangerous effect on the recovery. Maybe these new and increased fees could have been justified if phased in over the last 18 years, especially when the economy was good. But to institute them now would be folly.

And while these may be considered user fees, they are also costs that will be passed down to the ultimate user — the homebuyer or business owner. This is without doubt the wrong time to be siphoning more revenue from these hard-pressed folks, who need the money to pay their own bills and, it is to be hoped, to buy the goods and services that will stimulate the economy.

Meanwhile, raising revenue addresses just one side of the equation. The other must be considered: Reducing county costs so that there is less reason to “need” fee hikes.

This can be done in two ways.

Some critics claim that the planning and development department is overstaffed, especially now that building permit requests have fallen due to the economic downturn. We know that the county has reduced some staffing levels through attrition and reassignment. Although we are not prepared at this time to say uncategorically that this department or any other needs to be trimmed still further, we do think the county should further consider this cost-cutting technique.

The county might be able to cut staff if it made its system less cumbersome. Rezoning and building procedures are so protracted and unpredictable that they add unnecessary burdens to the approval process. Of course, procedures should continue to safeguard the environment and the taxpayer, but streamlining the system would benefit everyone in time and money saved.

Indeed, if planning costs can be reduced through simplifying procedures and making them more efficient, Albemarle might find it does not need to raise fees so dramatically.