Several council members want to raise appeals fees by more than $1,000.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The City Council reviewed the concept of increasing the fees for appealing city project approvals at last Wednesday’s quarterly meeting.
Mayor Andy Stern and Councilmember Sharon Barovsky, who have been the ones most vocal about the idea in the past, said they would like to see the fees moved up to about $1,500, an increase of more than $1,000. They said this would be an effort to bring the fee amounts closer to the amount of money it costs the city to work on the appeal. Former Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan said the appeal fees should be raised, but not by that much.
Currently, the fee to make an appeal, either of a city staff-approved project to the Planning Commission or a Planning Commission-approved project to the City Council, is $292 for the initial appeal and $159 per additional issue on the appeal. Barovsky had raised the issue of raising the fees earlier this month because she wanted appeals to be “revenue neutral,” and asked city staff to make a report for the quarterly meeting on how much appeals cost the city.
Environmental and Community Development Director Vic Peterson issued the report at the meeting in which he analyzed the costs to the city of two recent appeals. Taking into account the amount of staff time spent working on the appeals, Peterson said one of them cost $1,529 and the other $6,709. There was no information on the average cost of appeals. Peterson said in a phone interview Tuesday that the city had not previously analyzed the cost of staff work through this method, so the information was not available. He said the city would be monitoring the costs of future appeals so it can report them to the city.
Although she admitted further information is needed to determine exactly how much money is spent by the city on appeals, Barovsky said in a telephone interview Tuesday, “We’re spending a fortune with these appeals. I think the money could be spent on something like building parks and ball fields.”
At the quarterly meeting, Realtor Paul Grisanti spoke in favor of raising the fees and architect Ron Goldman spoke against it, saying the city should not make it impossible for the average person to file an appeal. Carrigan sided with Goldman in an interview this week.
“No information would have me endorse a $1,500 appeal fee,” the former planning commission chair said. “David Geffen can afford it and I’m sure that the Malibu Bay Co. can afford it. But the average member of our community is entitled to due process.”
Carrigan said he believes the appeal fees should be increased slightly. He said he guessed $500 would be an appropriate amount, but said more research should be done before any conclusion could be reached. Carrigan suggested the city analyze the appeal fees of 10 other coastal cities to get an idea of how Malibu compares. He said he has begun doing the research himself, and believes Malibu will discover that most or even all cities do not cover the entire cost of appeals through the fees.
“I would bet you dollars to donuts, they do not recover the costs,” Carrigan said. “The lost monies are costs associated with ensuring due process and private properties rights.”
Barovsky said, even if it was determined cities are not revenue neutral, she expected to find that the cost of appeals to other cities was closer to the fees paid by appellants than it is in Malibu. But she agreed more research should be done. She said she spoke with City Attorney Christi Hogin, and asked her to research the appeal fees of four other coastal cities and four cities with similar city budgets to Malibu.