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The town of Vail is moving toward 100% cost recovery on most of its fees associated with planning applications as its right-of-way permit fees see a jump as well.

The Vail Town Council and town staff began having discussions to increase these fees in early March. The discussion included the increase of its planning application fees, which were last updated in 2001, as well as its public way permit fees, which were updated in 2008.

While the increases are predominantly meant to align with rising staff costs, some are also meant to incentivize or disincentivize certain behaviors when it comes to development and construction.

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At its Tuesday, April 16, meeting, the Town Council heard the latest proposal for the application fees as well as passed new public way permit fees.

Planning application fees

The town’s planning application fees apply for various planning and development applications that go before Vail’s Town Council, staff, Planning and Environmental Commission as well as its Design Review Board. This includes applications for things like additions, exterior alterations, conditional use permits, zoning code amendments, development appeals, variances and more.

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The fees collected are used to offset the cost of staff’s time to review these applications. In March, Greg Roy, the town’s planning manager, reported that in 2001 when the fees were last updated, they covered around 72% of staff costs. Since then, the town has seen a 116% increase in staffing costs, meaning the town is only recovering around 33% of its costs, Roy reported.

Since the March meeting, the Town Council has seen several proposals for the fees. This included the initial proposal that would enable the town to recover 68% of its costs, what it would like to split costs 50/50 between the applicant and the town, and what it would like to cover town costs 100%.

At the most recent April meeting, Town Council expressed its support for increasing the costs so the town is recovering 100% of its staff costs for DRB and PEC applications.

However, there are a few proposed exceptions.

Town staff is recommending that Design Review Board applications for conceptual review, separation requests and tree removal remain free. This, Roy said is to encourage people to come in with these applications. Fees for wildlife-resistant enclosure applications, while not free, were left at their previous costs.

Following previous direction from the Town Council, the currently proposed fee schedule also includes an exception relating to employee housing units.

“Any Design Review Board application that is for an Employee Housing Unit as defined by Town Code that is not required as Inclusionary Zoning or Commercial Linkage may request a waiver of the application fee,” reads the proposed schedule included in the April 16 packet.

The staff is also proposing the creation of a “pass-through account” for zoning code amendments and comprehensive plan amendments as well as for Town Council appeals. Because these applications often require further staff, legal and technical reviews, the applicant would submit an amount through the account, which would then be used to cover the development review costs.

Additionally, for successful appeals, the pass-through account will only be billed at 50% of the billable rate of staff time. This change was made based on council feedback.

While council agrees on the proposed changes thus far, further changes may be coming. At the April 16 meeting, Vail resident Galan Aasland suggested that these fees were not equitable for homeowners wanting to make minor exterior alterations.

“For some people, this is their only interaction with the town. They’re paying plenty of property taxes, they’re paying sales tax on everything and the idea that they should be nailed to the wall for a big fee for putting a window at the top of their staircase or something; I think the town ought to be friendly to them to make these minor changes,” Aasland said.

In response to these comments, Roy suggested that the town could create a new “small project application,” which would apply to smaller exterior applications.

“We’d have to come up with a good policy about what qualifies and what doesn’t. And if your project changes in scope, at any point, above something, whatever we set, it will rise to the next level fee,” Roy said.

The proposed application fees are expected to be back before council in May with a new application type that captures this concept. Once the council agrees on the new schedule and approves it, the town expects them to go into effect later this year.

Public way permit fees

Public way permits are issued when a development or project interrupts the town’s public right-of-way. Most of the time these interruptions are for projects that require the developer to tear up asphalt for utility services or for parking or construction staging in the roadway.

There are two portions of the permit fee, the first being a base application fee, which, similarly to the planning application fees, is a cost-share with the town. The second is a use fee, depending on what the interruption is in the public right-of-way. This includes costs related to pavement degradation as well as the traffic impact on cars, pedestrians and bikes.

On average, the town issues around 500 of these permits during the construction season, with an average cost of $200 per permit.

In the resolution passed on April 16, the base fee is being increased from $150 to $250. The most common types of use fees are parking fees and street cut fees.  

The resolution increases the cost of a “typical utility service street cut” from $210 to $415 during the construction season. This fee is based on square footage, with the above fee being for a 200-square-foot cut.

Additionally, there is a fee for construction parking within the public right-of-way. In discussing this fee, the Town Council expressed its desire to limit this use to Mondays through Fridays, limit the number of vehicles allowed to five as well as have higher fees within the village areas. The Town Council also wanted the parking plan to be posted at the site. This was all captured in the resolution. 

For five construction vehicles to park in the right of way for one month (22 days), the town increased this fee from $250 to $1,800 in most places and $3,450 in the “Vail Core,” which stretches from West Forest Drive to Vail Valley Drive.

With these increases the goal is to encourage contractors to “hopefully look for a more efficient plan — and the fees reflect that — so there’s less impact to the public,” said Tom Kassmel, the town’s engineer.

With these increased fees, the town’s administrative costs are covered 100%, Kassmel noted.

With the resolution passed, these fees will go into place in the 2024 construction season. Kassmel said that the fees were presented at an April 4 meeting with around 80 members of the development community.

“We didn’t get any considerable negative feedback on (the fees),” Kassmel said.