District plans to increase OCP amendment fee from $22,000 to $100,000

District of Squamish plans to increase OCP amendment fee for Sub Area Plan applications from $22,000 to $100,000.

District says current fee does not cover significant planning staff resources required to process Sub Area Plan applications, which normally take over a year to process and involve significant staff resources.

The proposed fee would allow hiring an additional contract employee to process applications.

Currently, additional resources are negotiated after the application is made. However, this change would mean that those additional resources are provided up front.

The district also plans to remove the 25 per cent OCP amendment fee discount for concurrent OCP and rezoning applications.

The district says this change is proposed because rezoning and OCP amendment fees are not achieving cost recovery for the service provided.

The district also plans to increase the building permit fees from $9 to $11 per $1,000 of development value, increasing the fees for some building permit applications by up to 20%.

The district also plans to increase the plan processing fee from $90 to $200 for all applications.

It also plans to increase the plan processing fee from $90 to $500 for applications with development value above $100,000.

These proposed changes are part of a district plan to update building permits and development application fees.

The last major update to building permit application fees was done in 2016.

The district says not all fees are being increased and there are some fee reductions proposed as well.

It says these updates are necessary to ensure that permitting services are funded primarily by development application fees rather than taxation.

Virtual drop-in session to share feedback on the proposed changes is on Wednesday, March 31 at 6 pm.

A complete list of the proposed changes can be found here.