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Development Services Department Fee Increases
On
October 27, Dallas Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry sent a memo to City Council
to announce the release of a Final Draft Fee Study Assessment done by
consultants MGT Consulting of America. The assessment of the fees
charged by the Development Services Department (DEV) found that the
department was only recapturing roughly 55 percent of the cost
associated with providing development services for the City of
Dallas. Additionally, the Final Draft Fee Study Assessment made
recommendations on adjustments to current fees charged, as well as
the introduction of dozens of new fees, to boost cost recapture to
100 percent. The memo also laid out a desired timeline for implementation of the new fee
structure, which would see the new fees go into effect Feb 1, 2024.
Ahead of the December 4 briefing
(starts at 1:20) to the Economic Development Committee, The Real
Estate Council, along with some of our partner stakeholder
organizations, shared several questions regarding the underlying
assumptions the fee study is based on, including:
1.
Will the fee increases be phased in over
time (i.e. over three years) or increased immediately?
2.
How is the assumed cost affected by
certain inefficiencies in the department? Does the cost reflect that
it takes longer to review permits when the department has been
understaffed? Or that it may still take more staff time to review
permits with new, inexperienced staff?
3.
Does staff anticipate that going to full
cost recovery fees will result in an improvement in service times?
How so?
4.
What happened to the Enterprise Fund
surplus from 2015 (when the study was last done? Was that money used
to purchase or refinish the new building?
5.
Will a portion of the sale or future
lease of OCMC return to the enterprise fund to replenish its
reserves?
6.
Were the inputs used to calculate the
revenue shortfall based on hard costs that the department expended to
provide the service, or did it include budgeted but unrealized costs,
like carrying vacant positions for a year?
During
the briefing, staff were instructed to provide answers to these and
other questions before Council will consider approving the requested
fee increases. Staff answered some of these questions in a December 8
memo to Council, but several questions remain outstanding. As such,
TREC lobbied for, and was successful in securing a delay to the
approval of the new fee structure to ensure that the development
community’s concerns and questions are heard and answered prior to
adoption of a large fee increase.
As an organization, TREC understands the importance of the city
having the necessary resources to fulfill the essential work of
administering development in Dallas, but we will always fight on
behalf of our industry for transparency and accountability at City
Hall.
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