Simi Council May Raise Fees Paid by Developers : Finances: A city official says the increases are needed to cover employee raises. A building trades official says some are excessive.

The Simi Valley City Council is scheduled tonight to consider increasing development fees to levels that would exceed those of most other cities in Ventura County.

If the new fee structure is approved, only Oxnard and Moorpark will be charging more.

The council rescheduled its meeting from Monday to Tuesday to give council members the opportunity to attend Gov. Pete Wilson’s inauguration in Sacramento.

Including the development fees, the council is to consider increasing 81 service fees that encompass everything from installing electric meters to processing returned checks.

But the most significant proposed increases are the planning and processing fees for developers. For example, the cost for the city’s planning staff to review a project application would increase from $695 to $1,757, the processing of a development permit would increase from $2,431 to $3,047 and the processing of a General Plan amendment would increase from $2,306 to $2,784.

Since Simi Valley’s planning fees are accepted as deposits, a developer receives a refund if the city’s planning staff completes work sooner than anticipated, said Patty Hufford-Farmer, an official with the city’s Environmental Services Department. Under the proposed procedure, an applicant would be billed an additional 20% of a deposit fee if costs exceed the deposit.

The proposed increases are necessary, Hufford-Farmer said, to cover raises for city employees.

Officials of the Ventura County Building Industry Assn. said some of the planning fees are excessive and should be reduced.

“There is concern that the size and scope of the fees is too great, that they are well beyond that of the traditional cost-of-living increases,” said Paul Tryon, executive director of the Ventura County chapter of the Building Industry Assn.

Tryon said the association believes that the economic downturn is pressuring the city to increase building and development fees. But he said the city should remember that builders are also suffering because of the economy’s slowdown.

Lloyd Boland, president of the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce, said chamber officials will meet today before the City Council meeting to discuss the fees.

“We do have some concerns, and we will present them to the council,” Boland said.

Mayor Greg Stratton said the proposed planning fees reflect what it costs for the city’s staff to work on development projects. In addition to salary increases for planning officials, the fee increases would pay for more staff time to process planning documents because the state continues to impose new environmental regulations, Stratton said.

“That’s the cost of doing business,” he said. “If the applicant doesn’t pay for it, then somebody has to, and that somebody is the taxpayer. . . . I don’t think anybody likes subsidizing the building industry.”