(A) Purpose. The costs of the city for receiving, analyzing, processing, hearing and final process for requests of changes, modification or special consideration under this chapter, such as requests for rezoning (map or text), conditional use permits, interim use permits and variances are considered to be unique to the applicant requesting consideration, and it is the intent of this section to provide that all costs of the city occasioned by the requests shall be borne by the applicant. The reimbursement to the city shall be limited to actual costs of the city. Actual costs shall include all engineering, legal, planning or other consultant fees or costs paid by the city for other consultants for expert review of a development application.
(B) Base zoning fee. Each applicant shall pay a non-refundable base zoning fee at the time an application is presented to the city for a zoning change of any nature, site and building plan review, a conditional use or a variance. This fee is intended to reimburse the city for its costs for administrative processing a development application. If this fee proves to be insufficient to cover the costs, the additional costs will be charged as a part of the zoning deposit or the supplemental zoning deposit.
(C) Escrow deposit. In addition to the non-refundable basic zoning fee, each applicant shall pay an escrow deposit in an amount established by City Council resolution at the time of application. All actual costs including, but not limited to, planning, engineering, legal or other consultant fees or costs, incurred by the city in the processing of the application shall be paid from or reimbursed to the city, from the escrow deposit. Actual costs not fully paid or reimbursed from the base zoning fee shall be paid or reimbursed from this escrow or supplemental deposit.
(D) Supplemental deposit. At any time while the application is pending and before its final conclusion, if the Zoning Administrator determines that the amount of the escrow deposit required by division (C) above of this section is or is estimated to be insufficient to pay for present or anticipated actual costs of the application, a supplementary deposit shall be required by the Zoning Administrator to be paid by the applicant. The one or more supplemental deposits shall be in an amount sufficient to pay all actual costs of the city.
(E) Refunds; administrative costs. The base zoning fee, intended to cover administrative costs, is non-refundable.
(F) Refunds; direct costs. If the direct costs of the city in processing the application are less than the amount of the escrow deposit and any supplemental deposit, any overage shall be refunded to the applicant upon the conclusion of the proceedings, and any costs in excess of the supplemental deposits on hand with the city shall be paid by the applicant prior to completion of the proceedings by the city.
(Prior Code, § 11-3-7) (Ord. 258, passed 5-4-2006)