County eyes upping developer fees

The Albemarle County Planning Commission endorsed a proposal Tuesday night that would dramatically increase an array of fees paid by real-estate developers.
If approved by the Board of Supervisors, the county would impose new fees and raise existing fees for nearly all applications, permits, reviews and inspections of new subdivision developments.
“The last time we did a comprehensive update of our fees was 1991,” said Mark Graham, Albemarle County’s director of community development. “It’s overdue.”

The idea, Graham said, is to require builders and developers to cover more of the cost of reviewing their projects. Right now, he said, county taxpayers are footing the majority of the bill.
Many of the proposed fee increases are sizable. For example, it costs developers $720 for the Planning Commission to review a preliminary plat. If the changes are approved, that fee would jump to $4,100 — an increase of 469 percent.

The Planning Commission approved fee increases that go significantly beyond those advocated by the county staff. The commission approved a plan to require developers to cover 75 percent of the cost of reviewing projects, while the county had suggested requiring only 50 percent.
The new fees come as the Charlottesville region’s real estate development industry is struggling to stay afloat amid an overall economic downturn and a sharp decline in local home sales.
Jay Willer, executive director of the Blue Ridge Home Builders Association, said the county’s proposal goes too far.
“The county sees this as a way of recovering [from developers] the county’s cost of monitoring development,” Willer said. “But who benefits from these reviews? If these reviews are for the public benefit, then shouldn’t the public bear some of the cost?”
Willer added that real-estate development in Albemarle County is already pricey because of complex and time-consuming regulations. A better alternative, he said, would be to ease some of the county’s development regulations, thereby reducing the cost of the county’s oversight.

Neil Williamson, executive director of the Free Enterprise Forum, is similarly critical of the county’s plan. The proposed fee increases, he pointed out, were based on a self-reported survey of county staffers who were asked how long they spent on performing development review tasks.
The survey was conducted, he added, during four weeks in 2007 as the county’s development department was experiencing a high level of staff turnover. As a result, Williamson said, the cost of reviewing development projects is probably inflated because some county officials were still figuring out how to perform their new jobs.
“I have a lot of questions about the rate study that was done,” Williamson said.
The Planning Commission narrowly approved the fee increases in a 4-3 vote.
Commissioner Linda Porterfield, who represents the Scottsville district, said the county — which is facing a revenue shortfall — ought to be trying to recoup its cost of doing business wherever possible.

“In this economy, we can’t ask the taxpayers to pick up the cost of something they may or may not benefit from,” she said.
Yet Commissioner Don Franco, who represents the Rio District and is president of development company KG Associates, said the public benefits from the county’s careful review of new development projects, and should consequently split the bill with developers.
The Planning Commission made one exception to the fee increase, recommending the fees for two-lot family division be set at 50 percent of the county’s review cost, rather than 75 percent. As a result, the fee for such a project would increase from the current $95 to $690, which is still a 626 percent jump.
According to the county’s analysis, the new fees would be more in line with Charlottesville, Greene County and elsewhere in Virginia.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to take up the new fee structure on April 8.