In an effort to increase user-friendliness and clarity of planning fees, Flathead County Planning Director BJ Grieve has overhauled his office’s administrative fee schedule.

That doesn’t mean all the fees are going up. Some would be increased, but many planning fees would decrease. And there are some new fees proposed.

Grieve presented a draft of his fee proposal to the county commissioners on Thursday with an explanation of how he determined what needed to be changed.

Simpler application descriptions are categorized more logically and policy footnotes have been added to explain some of the more complex interpretation and policy issues. He rounded off dollar values so that anyone can calculate the fees quickly in their head.

Consistency and fairness are goals of the new schedule.

“Instead of simply adding or subtracting a percentage from every fee, I focused on the purpose of fees,” Grieve explained. “Similar administrative processes with similar costs should roughly have similar fees, and those fee amounts should simply cover costs as closely as possible.”

The Flathead County Planning Board gave Grieve some preliminary feedback on the proposed fees at its Wednesday meeting. Grieve will incorporate suggestions and comments into a revised draft that should be ready for the commissioners’ perusal in two weeks.

The commissioners could choose to hold a public hearing or they could ask for additional analysis, Grieve said. He’s aiming to have the new fee schedule in place by April 1, the date the county’s new subdivision regulations take effect.

For major subdivisions, many fees would be reduced. An application for preliminary plat approval would drop from $1,050 (plus $112 per lot for the first 20 lots and $56 per lot for additional lots) to $1,000 (plus $75 per lot across the board). A $5 fee per adjacent property address would be charged to cover the costs of sending certified letters of notification.

Final plat review for major subdivisions would drop from $840 and $56 per lot to $800 and $50 per lot.

Plan amendments would decrease substantially, from $2,800 and $28 per acre ($15,000 cap) to $1,000 and $30 per acre.

“Given the nature of a typical land-use map amendment or text amendment, the existing fee is too high,” Grieve said.

Fees also would be reduced somewhat for conditional-use permits, variance requests, planned-unit development proposals, zoning map amendments and lakeshore standard permits and variances.

Grieve wants to eliminate after-the-fact permit fees. Currently the county charges four times the normal fee for an after-the-fact permit.

“Someone needing to get a permit who did not know they needed one or even who willingly violated should not be ‘punished’ through administrative fees,” Grieve said. “Administrative fees are to cover expenses and not burden the taxpayer with individual development application processing.”

Proposed new fees include administrative reviews of first minor subdivisions and review of material changes to approved major and minor preliminary plat applications

An applicant for a new zoning district also would be charged a new fee of $1,200 plus $30 per acre. Grieve said the Planning Board suggested putting a $15,000 cap on this fee, because if, “hypothetically speaking,” a large landowner brought in an application for thousands of acres, the fee could be as much as a quarter-million dollars.

One fee that would increase if the new schedule is adopted is zoning text amendments, which would be bumped from $700 to $800. Other increases are proposed to Canyon Area Land Use Regulatory System fees for amendments, variances, appeals, and major and minor land-use reviews. Canyon planning fees are significantly lower than those charged in other areas of the county and should be brought in line, Grieve said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.