The Board of Supervisors has established fee waiver policies to ensure requests are granted on a consistent, equitable and timely basis. Fee waiver requests typically fall into the following categories: Staff error, tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organizations building homes, and private citizens requesting fee waivers due to financial hardship. These fee waiver situations have resulted in the following Resolutions being adopted by the Board: Resolution 03-38 was adopted in 2003 to address staff error and instances in which another jurisdiction has waived any applicable, associated fees which result in no additional cost to the County; in 2009, Resolution 09-21 was adopted to address fee waivers associated with projects originating from the Housing Authority of Cochise County; and Resolution 09-52, also adopted in 2009 addresses fee waivers for new home construction funded in whole or part by tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organizations for citizens who qualify for low- to moderate-income assistance.

Staff is proposing a new Resolution in part to establish one concise fee waiver policy. The new Resolution would authorize Elected Officials, Department Directors and Deputy Directors to waive applicable fees for application, inspection or service to the following extent and under the following conditions:

*All inspection and/or service fees associated with repair, rehabilitation or new construction of low-to moderate-income affordable housing, as defined by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is providing assistance and/or whole or partial funding from the Housing Authority of Cochise County or tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organizations; or
*Upon request, up to $200 in inspection and/or service fees for any project proposed by an operator of a charitable nonprofit organization that is tax-exempt under 26 USC 501(c)(3).

The new fee waiver would address projects that may or may not involve housing projects. A formal process to facilitate fee waiver requests from the public, namely for financial hardship, has never been established. To accommodate these requests, a new process is included in this Resolution, which would establish a formal process in which requests for fee waivers shall be submitted by the Applicant in writing to the affected Department. The Department would process these fee waiver requests, using the standard procedures for placing the request on the agenda for the next available meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

SUMMARY

Because of the difficulty in crafting comprehensive and equitable criteria for evaluating fee waiver requests, this revised policy would continue to allow for limited fee waivers under particular circumstances. However, elected officials and staff would now have additional authority to grant fee reductions, upon request, of up to $200 in inspection and/or service fees for any project proposed by an operator of a charitable nonprofit organization that is tax-exempt under 26 USC 501(c)(3). A new process will be established wherein any fee waiver requests outside of this policy, namely those for financial hardship, shall be submitted through the affected Department for consideration by the Board of Supervisors.

There would be one concise Resolution addressing fee waivers including reductions of up to $200 in inspection and/or service fees for any project proposed by an operator of a charitable nonprofit organization that is tax-exempt under 26 USC 501(c)(3).  A new process will be established to facilitate any fee waiver request from the public. 

There would not be one concise fee waiver Resolution, nor would staff have authority to grant up to $200 in inspection and/or service fees for any project proposed by an operator of a charitable nonprofit organization that is tax-exempt under 26 USC 501(c)(3).  There would not be a process for facilitating fee waiver requests from the public.

Please forward a signed and recorded copy of the Resolution to the Community Development Department, Planning Division.