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/A INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, FLORIDA MEMORANDUM TO: Board of County Commissioners THROUGH: John A. Titkanich, Jr.; County Administrator FROM: Andrew Sobczak, Planning & Development Services Director DATE: May 8, 2024 SUBJECT: Waiver of Development Application and Inspection Fees for Affordable Housing Proj ects It is requested that the data presented herein be given formal consideration by the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) at its regular meeting of May 21, 2024. BACKGROUND & ANALYSIS On April 4, 2024, Indian River Habitat for Humanity requested that staff waive the development application fees for their Gifford Gardens residential subdivision project (e.g. preliminary plat application fee, land clearing permit fee, conditional concurrency application fee, etc.). Upon receipt of the request, Planning and Development Services (PDS) staff reviewed the applicable County land development regulations (LDRs) and the current development application fee schedules, and determined that the current provisions do not allow the PDS Director or the Public Works Director to waive their respective fees, for development applications of this scale, even for affordable housing projects. Given the critical need for affordable housing within the County, PDS staff coordinated with County Administration and Public Works staff and is proposing to add a provision to the County's current fee schedules to allow the PDS Director and Public Works Director to waive any development application and/or inspection fees for their respective departments specifically for affordable housing projects. To avoid overcomplicating this process, fees may or may not be waived based on each project's delivery of affordable housing. Staff are proposing that each respective Director be given the discretion to waive their respective fees on a project -by -project basis. It should be noted that pre -application conferences, where an applicant or developer can discuss a proposed project with appropriate staff at the conceptual level, are currently free for site plans or planned development (PD) projects. In the past year, staff has held several pre -application conferences to discuss potential affordable housing projects. However, none of those projects have been submitted formally, thus triggering the requirement for payment of application fees. Since the formal project submittal by Habitat for Humanity for the Gifford Gardens is imminent, staff would like to proactively update the applicable fee schedules for affordable housing projects in preparation. 981