Katie Wilken, Deputy Director of Planning

FY2024 Proposed New and Modified User Fees with a proposed effective date of July 1, 2023.

ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 2023-2307 APPROVING AND ADOPTING A DOCUMENT ENTITLED THE GOODYEAR MUNICIPAL USER FEE SCHEDULE REPLACING AND SUPERSEDING THE MUNICIPAL USER FEE SCHEDULE ADOPTED BY RESOLUTION NO. 2022-2274 AS AMENDED; PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE. (Jared Askelson, Deputy Finance Director)

The proposed fee changes to the Preliminary Subdivision Plat Application Fees are the result of a change to the preliminary plat review process. The new fee will result in less revenue; however, the new fee represents 100% cost recovery of staff time under the new review process. Over the last three years, there have been an average of 12 preliminary plats submitted to the city annually.With regard to the changes to the Dry Utility Boring fees, there is no impact to projects that are a mile or less. For projects that are more than a mile the ultimate fee is calculated on a base fee plus the hours the civil inspector in on the job. So, therefore, the proposed revision is cost neutral since 100% of time will be recovered.

On November 7, 2022, the Mayor and City Council of the City of Goodyear approved Resolution No. 2022-2274, approving and adopting user fees and cost recovery rates a document entitled Goodyear Municipal User Fee Schedule as recommended by staff.
Per A.R.S. §9-499.15 all proposed fee changes were noticed on our website on March 17, 2023, with a copy provided to the Clerk's office, complying with all required notifications procedures.

On April 10, 2023, City Council approved a change to the preliminary plat review process which removed the requirement for Planning and Zoning Commission and City Council approval. For a preliminary plat with 11-200 lots, this has reduced the amount of staff time it takes to review a preliminary plat from an average of 73 hours to 44 hours, a 40% reduction. The cost analysis conducted as a part of the 2021 user fee update for the preliminary plat review was modified to reflect the change to an administrative process. Due to the significant reduction in staff time needed for these reviews, staff recommends adopting lower fees which represents 100% cost recovery of staff resources. The process changes only impacted preliminary plats with 11 or more lots and so the application fees for preliminary plats with 10 or fewer lots is not proposed for change.  Below is a table comparing the current and proposed fees.
 

Fee Name	Current Fee	Proposed Fee	Change
P60.4 Preliminary Subdivision Plat Application 10 or fewer lots	$1,200	$1,200	No change is proposed to this fee
P60.5 Preliminary Subdivision Plat Application 11-200 lots	$6,155	$4,662	24% reduction
P60.6 Preliminary Subdivision Plat Application 201+ lots	$8,317	$5,521	34% reduction

After consideration and evaluation of the current dry utility boring fees, changes to the language of E.82 and adding the new fee category of E82.1 is being proposed. The fee for a large scale boring operation in excess of 5,280 linear feet (LF), which is 1 mile, would be calculated at the base fee $7,761.60 represented in E82, plus the actual hours that inspectors are on the job inspecting with hourly costs calculated from the current Engineering inspection fees found in fees E52 and E53.  This will necessitate that staff log time and bill the project prior to close-out. Therefore, the fee will be based on the complexity of the project and amount of staff time necessary for completion. The new large scale boring fee was sent out to dry utility companies for comment and input and feedback received was very positive and thankful that we were open to reevaluating cost. Below is a table comparing current and proposed fees.
 

Fee Name	Current Fee	Proposed Fee	Change
E82 Dry Utility Boring (base fee)	$1.47 Per LF	Dry Utility Boring (base fee) $1.47 Per LF up to 5,280LF (1 mile)	Added verbiage to create base fee. No cost change.
E82.1 Dry Utility Boring (in excess of 1 mile)	New Fee	Dry Utility Boring (excess of 1 mile) $7,761.60 plus Inspector Hourly Rate for all inspector logged hours. (see E52 and E53)	Revised to a base fee plus the hourly rate for inspection time for 100% cost recovery.