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Councilmember Narum asked and Ms. Wagner confirmed that Pleasanton's share is 50% of the total LPFD budget. Mayor Thorne noted that the staff report occasionally discusses how the proposed cost recovery rates compare to those of other cities but not necessarily how overall development costs compare. He explained that a percentage based comparison is not necessarily helpful when the total costs vary significantly and said he would like for staff to present a normalized comparison on a cost per capita basis of some kind. Mr. Fialho explained that staff would have to prepare some sort of methodology to evaluate the commercial components of a community to normalize that comparison. For example, the City of Dublin's population is smaller than Pleasanton but its development activity is more focused towards residential than Pleasanton's. Ms. Wagner explained that there would be some added difficulty in determining what portion of another city's budget could be attributed to fee related costs and that simply using their total budget on a per capita basis would distort the comparison. She added that the comparisons within the staff report were based on information from the cities of Livermore, Dublin, San Ramon and Fremont in an effort to focus on cities that looked and felt most like Pleasanton. Ms. Wagner continued her presentation on Fire Prevention fees, reviewing several of the proposed increases. Currently, Pleasanton charges $255 for fire alarm system permits covering 16-50 devices. Staff is proposing to increase that to $870, which is $50 less than the 5-city fee average and equal to what Livermore has charged for the same permit since the 1990s. Annual inspection and CUPA fees for a gas station with 3 underground storage tanks is currently free, with the city paying the user's CUPA fees. Staff is proposing to increase that fee to $2,380 which is again identical to Livermore's charge and well below the 5-city average of $3,487. Fees for smaller scale items will not increase as significantly, with the charge for hot water heater permits increasing from $26 to $85. She presented an overview of the Planning Division's service costs and proposed fees. The total cost of planning services in FY 2014-15 just exceeded $2 million but only $1.5 million of this is fee related. She reminded the Council that the non-fee related activity is typically for advanced planning such as General Plan or environmental review. While some cities have actually started to implement a building permit surcharge to help recover some of this money that is not part of staff's recommendation at this time. Currently, the Planning Division recovers 7% of its cost of services through fee related charges. Most cities achieve cost recovery of approximately 75%, with few reaching 100% largely due to the cost of appeals. Staff is recommending a 25% rate of recovery during the planning stage of a project as well as deferment of 36% to the building permit stage for a total cost recovery rate of 61%. Conditional Use Permit fees are proposed to increase from $150 to $3,000 versus a 5-city fee average of $5,158. The City of Livermore currently charges $10,590. Design Review fees are proposed to increase from a flat rate of $50 to a variable fee ranging from $550 to $1,650 based on the complexity of the review. When factoring in the deferred portion the total fee would be closer to $2,500, which is still well below the 5- city average of$6,178. Councilmember Pentin asked why staff has not proposed "time and materials" based fees like some other cities have used. Ms. Wagner acknowledged that many cities have moved in that direction in order to achieve 100% cost recovery, particularly because it can be very difficult to properly estimate what the total cost will be. However, the local development community expressed concerns in 2011 that time and materials based charges lack accountability and often escalate out of control when appeals are factored in. It was also expressed that if not for the "Pleasanton process," referring to the level of public involvement in City Council Agenda Page 8 of 11 April 07, 2015