CAMARILLO : Interest-Rate Decline Lowers Builders’ Fee

In a move that could be the first of its kind in city history, Camarillo officials have reduced a municipal fee.

The City Council, whose members said they could not remember ever taking a similar action, voted last week to lower the fees that developers in the city must pay toward the construction of a new police station.

A new police station is needed to replace the deteriorating structure on Palm Drive, city officials said.

Builders are assessed fees for the police station and other city services every time they build a new house or develop an acre of commercial land. Most of the fees continue to increase or stay the same.

But the ordinance that established the police station fee in 1987 requires city officials to annually re-evaluate the developer fees, which are tied to prevailing interest rates and the cost of construction, Engineering Director Dan Greeley said. This year, interest rates fell so much that they more than offset the increase in construction costs, so the fee assessed to developers was reduced, Greeley said.