Subject:
Title
Public Hearing to consider amending Planning and Zoning Development Review Fees
Body
EXPLANATION AND SUMMARY:
NOTE: This item was previously reviewed and approved by Council. It is before you again because the attachment to the approved item was the old ordinance without track changes. The track changes, consistent with Council direction and staff report, were forwarded for review and approval by the Town Attorney, but the actual posted ordinance did not include the changes. You recently received a note from the Town Clerk indicating that there is a problem with Granicus eliminating track changes when items are posted in Word. The attached ordinance with amendments has been modified to a PDF format so that tracked changes remain. We have attached a clean copy with amended changes as well.
The Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) proposes increasing fees for variances, conditional use permits, occupancy permits, sign permits, driveways, Board of Architectural Review submissions, site plans, subdivisions, and rezoning cases. The proposed fees better reflect the time required by staff to review permits and zoning cases and are more comparable with fees of surrounding jurisdictions.
Vienna's fees have not been adjusted since 2011. The department established recommended changes based on the goal of covering a portion of the Town's cost to review development applications. The attached comparison from nearby jurisdictions illustrates that in no instance is Vienna's the highest for any given fee, even considering proposed increases. The only significant increase was for rezoning applications, which previously was the lowest among other jurisdictions. The cost increase for rezoning reflects the substantial effort needed to process MAC projects. Unlike other jurisdictions, the proposed Vienna rezoning fee includes site plan review so that the cost of both reviews is still significantly below the combined fees of other jurisdictions. DPZ also will c...
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