Board of Supervisors keep fire mitigation fee rates unchanged

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors accepted the Fire Mitigation Fee Review Committee’s annual report for Fiscal Year 2018-19 and found that the participating fire agen­cies were in conformance with the County Fire Mitigation Fee Ordinance, but a planned increase was deferred.

The supervisors’ 5-0 vote September 15 maintained the existing fee schedule, approved the resolution for capital expen­ditures for the fire mitigation fee revenue, and accepted the Fire Mitigation Fee Review Committee’s annual report for Fiscal Year 2018-19. The fire mitigation fee for non-agricul­tural construction had original­ly been scheduled to increase from 58 cents per square foot to 75 cents per square foot, but due to the hardship on businesses the coronavirus shutdown has caused a fee increase was deemed inappropriate.

The fire mitigation fee is paid by developers to fund the cost of fire department facilities serving the new development. The county established the Fire Mitigation Fee Program in 1986 to provide funding for fire protection and emergency med­ical services in the unincorpo­rated communities. Although local fire agencies lack the le­gal authority to impose mitiga­tion fees on new development, the county collects a fee from building permit applicants on behalf of 13 independent fire protection districts (one fire protection district was dis­solved during Fiscal Year 2018- 19 and is included on the annual report, and latent fire protec­tion powers were removed from three water districts during Fiscal Year 2019-20 and those three districts will appear on next year’s report as well as this year’s) and one county ser­vice area with fire protection responsibility (a second county service area was dissolved dur­ing Fiscal Year 2018-19 with two neighboring fire protection districts taking over responsi­bility). The mitigation fees are distributed quarterly to agency accounts and must be used for capital projects or to purchase firefighting equipment or sup­plies which will serve new de­velopments.

The Fire Mitigation Fee Review Committee reviews the annual reports of the par­ticipating agencies to confirm that the improvements are necessary to serve new devel­opment. The committee mem­bers consist of two fire chiefs (currently Fred Cox of the Rancho Santa Fe Fire Protec­tion District and Joe Napier of the Valley Center Fire Protec­tion District), one elected direc­tor of a fire protection district (currently Ken Munson of the North County Fire Protection District), one County Service Area staff member (who had been Susan Quasarano until she stepped down from the commit­tee effective February 24), one San Diego County Fire Author­ity staff member (currently Liz Johnson), and one representa­tive apiece from the Building Industry Association (current­ly Matt Adams), the San Diego County Farm Bureau (current­ly executive director Hannah Gbeh), and the county’s Plan­ning Commission (currently David Pallinger).

The County Fire Mitiga­tion Fee Ordinance allows fee ceilings to be increased or de­creased in proportion to chang­es in the Cost of Construction Index. The ordinance also re­quires an evaluation of the base fee every five years based upon dividing the average cost in cur­rent dollars to construct a fully-equipped fire station within the county’s unincorporated area by the average square footage of structures served by that av­erage fire station. That result becomes the new base fee and was last adjusted in October 2014 and thus became effective for the 2015-16 fees.

In 2015 the estimated average cost to construct a new fire sta­tion was $322 per square foot. The updated estimated average cost to build a new fire station including permits is $5,269,250 and the average size of the 18 most recent fire stations is 5,600 square feet, which creates an average cost of $941 square foot. The average fire station serves 2,934 dwelling units, so the cost per dwelling unit is $1,796 and based on the average new dwelling unit size of 2,400 square feet the average cost for a new fire station is $0.75 per square foot.

The Fire Mitigation Fee Re­view Committee had recom­mended an increase prior to the coronavirus outbreak. The proposed fee increase was with­drawn from the May 19 Board of Supervisors agenda, and the replacement proposal approved September 16 accepts the an­nual report and spending plan but does not increase fees.

Even with the proposed in­crease for non-agricultural construction the previous rec­ommendation would not have increased the fees of 16 cents per square foot for agricultural buildings without sprinklers, two cents per square foot for agricultural buildings with fire sprinkler systems, and one cent per square foot for poultry and greenhouse buildings.

The Alpine Fire Protection District received $75,514.74 of Fire Mitigation Fee Program revenue in Fiscal Year 2018-19. The San Diego County Re­gional Fire Authority, whose territory includes the former San Diego Rural, Pine Valley, Boulevard, and Campo fire de­partments, had $158,449.42 of mitigation fund revenue.

Because the funding is used for capital improvements, it is not required to be spent in a particular fiscal year. The Fiscal Year 2020-21 planned capital expenditures approved by the Fire Mitigation Fee Re­view Committee include debt service payback for previous Alpine Fire Protection District fire station construction.