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STAFF ANALYSIS COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENT FEE As proposed, the comprehensive plan amendment procedures closely correspond to the County's existing rezoning process. Although there are a few procedural differences between the two processes, ® both involve the same basic activity; that is, assessing existing and projected conditions to determine the reasonableness of changing the designated use of a parcel of land. In fact, an amendment to the Future Land Use Element of the Comprehensive Plan oftentimes necessitates a rezoning of the land area involved. , I Since both the plan amendment and rezoning processes are comparable, the current charges for rezoning requests were used as a basis for developing the comprehensive plan amendment fee structure. Besides the rezoning charges, several other criteria were also considered in developing the plan amendment fee schedule. As with rezonings, the cost of reviewing a plan amendment proposal varies with the complexity of the request, the size of the land area involved, and type of use proposed for the property. Because the complexity of a proposed amendment is influenced by a number of characteristics and because the proposed use does not always provide an adequate indication of the cost to review the request, neither was used as a basis for establishing fees. Instead, the size of the parcel was chosen as the factor upon which land use amendment application fees would be based. For a typical amendment request, the staff time and cost required for review increase as the size of the parcel involved in the request increases. This relationship, however, is not constant. Rather than varying with any increase in land area, staff time and cost requirements for review more closely correspond to general categories of land size. In fact, if all other characteristics are equal, most proposed amendments involving small parcels will require similar amounts of staff time for review and produce similar costs. Time and cost requirements are also relatively constant for amendment requests involving moderate sized land areas, for amendment requests involving medium sized land areas, and for amendment requests involving large sized land areas. Generally, comprehensive plan amendment requests involving smi-.11 areas, usually five acres or less, will not require as extensive an analysis as larger areas. Small land areas will often have less diversity in terms of site characteristics, fewer and less extensive environmental problems, and fewer adjacent land areas whose present or proposed use affects the amendment request. As the size of the parcel increases, more characteristics are considered in greater detail during the review process. In plan amendment requests involving medium and large sized land areas, extensive analysis of utilities, access, and environmental factors substantially increases the staff time and cost associated with the review process. Increases in review costs, however, seem to peak with large-sized land areas; for tracts exceeding 100 acres, it is assumed that review costs remain relatively constant. Based upon the above analysis, four categories of specific comprehensive plan amendment requests were delineated. These consist of small parcels, moderate sized land areas, medium sized land areas, and large land areas. For each category, a separate fee has been set. These fees then generally reflect the differences in staff time and costs associated with review of comprehensive plan amendment requests in each category. Unlike the County's current fee structure for rezoning requests,