ESCONDIDO

back to the council in 2021 with a plan to raise fees to achieve the goal of full cost recovery for infrastructure projects, Petrek said.

At its meeting last week, the council was briefed on the new strategy, which includes a public hearing on Oct. 28 when the council will consider the 2 percent fee increase, as well as a request to allocate $100,000 to pay for the financial analysis.

Currently, the development fees charged by the city cover about 82 percent of

infrastructure costs, said Petrek, with the rest coming from grants, bonds and other one-time revenue sources.

In 2017, he said, the council authorized annual 2 percent increases to keep up with inflation for building materials such as steel, lumber and concrete.

The 2 percent increase will raise the development fees charged for new singlefamily homes by about $340, Petrek said. Fees would also increase for development of multi-family homes, and commercial and industrial buildings. If approved on Oct. 28, the new fees would take effect in February.

Until the city completes its financial analysis and raises development fees by a larger amount, Escondido will still face a gap of tens of millions of dollars to fully pay for the infrastructure needed to serve new development, Petrek said.

At last week’s council meeting, the city received only one written public comment on the development fee issue, from the Escondido Chamber of Citizens.

In its comments, the group said it was “extremely disappointing and unfortunate” that the city changed course from its plan to set fees that would fully offset the

cost of infrastructure projects.

“The proposed fee increase that is now limited to the annual 2 percent formula makes it more difficult for the City to accelerate collection of revenue necessary to stabilize the City’s extreme revenue deficit,” the group said.

However, the letter went on to say that the group is encouraged to read in the staff report that the city plans to move forward with a new fee proposal in the spring of 2021 aimed at fully covering the costs of needed public facilities.