Posted By Steven A. Gardner on 4/30/2008 at 7:45 PM
I didn't know if this would be Strictly Surveying, so chose the B & LI Category. Tell me if these fees sound a little bit high to you. I have a client with 9.5 acres that they hired me to divide into two parcels. The non-refundable Planning Dept. application fee was $8,042. The Dept. of Environmental Review & Assessment charged $6,862.50 to determine the split would have no environmental impact. State Fish & Game charges $1,900.75 and they don't even review the application. That gets us to the hearing. Assuming it is approved by the Subdivision Review Committee (no guarantee of that) a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program document will be recorded so the County inspector can watch during construction to make sure no trees are harmed - fee $3,600.00. The County Surveyor will charge map checking fees by the hour, usually about $1,000 even if the only red marks are changing the date and maybe a mis-spelled word.
That's $21,405.25 to put a line on a piece of mylar, not even adding in my fees and title company fees.
If the parcels being created were less than 2 acres, they would also have to pay park fees of about 1.5% of the appraised value per acre times the number of parcels($250 park fee appraisal fee). I had a two-way split recently with a park fee of $11,520. If they remove any oak trees to build the new house or even to widen the public road, which can be required at owner's expense w/engineered plans, they will have to pay $325 per inch of trunk diameter removed, 10" tree=$3,250.
I could go on but I think you get the idea.
