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PLANNING REPORT DATE: February 12, 2009 CASE: ZA2009-001 SUBJECT: Zoning Code Amendment to Chapter 8 Establishing Requirements Related to Cash Escrow Deposits for Land Use Requests APPLICANT: City of New Brighton REQUEST&BACKGROUND At the direction of the City Council, staff prepared a Zoning Code amendment that establishes cash deposit requirements for various land use applications. The amendment consists of a new Article 5 to Chapter 8 of the Zoning Code. The intent of the proposed amendment is to recoup extraordinary costs associated with certain land use applications. Those extraordinary costs, such as consultations with technical experts, typically are not covered through the application fee currently collected. The City Council discussed the proposed ordinance at a worksession on February 9th. The City Council directed staff to proceed to the public hearing process at the Planning Commission. It is anticipated the Council would receive the ordinance for formal adoption on February 24th. The ordinance would then be published in the official City newspaper on March 4th, which would be the official effective date. ATTACHMENTS A—Proposed Ordinance AMENDMENT ANALYSIS Under the proposed ordinance an applicant would be required to submit a cash deposit at the time of land use application submittal. The cash deposit would be held in an account managed by the City's Finance Department. Throughout the course of review of a land use proposal, costs incurred by the City would be deducted from the deposit. If at any time the balance is depleted to less than five percent of the original amount, the applicant would be required to deposit additional funds sufficient to cover costs incurred by the City. If all or a part of the land use review and development is completed, inspected, and accepted, any remaining balance would be returned to the applicant. However, the City may hold a portion of the deposit until all items covered by the applicant's development approval are completed in a manner acceptable to City staff. The proposed ordinance is attached as exhibit A. There are four parts to the ordinance. Section 8-810, establishes the types of land use applications that would be subject to the cash deposit requirements. The remaining sections describe the process for handling applications, which was described in the preceding paragraph. It is anticipated that staff would immediately implement the ordinance with upcoming land use applications. Lastly, and as is the case with any ordinance amendment, it may be necessary to make revisions to the ordinance or policy changes as staff begins implementing the new procedures. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Recommend the City Council adopt the proposed ordinance as drafted by staff. Szott,t,c- ab(4,,,,a,. Janice Gundlach, City Planner