Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — Dripping Springs City Council heard presentations from several departments on amending and updating fee schedule formats at its Sept. 2 meeting.
Fire
Nearly 11 years following its inception, North Hays County Fire Rescue has not changed its fees since 2014, explained fire chief Scott Collard.
However, the team has worked with city of Dripping Springs staff to research how to appropriately adjust fees to align with today’s standards, Collard said. Additionally, this will also help transition North Hays County Fire Rescue to implement a new fire code, which has not been updated since 2018, in the future.
“The fee schedule itself is designed to assist city staff and our personnel with a much more efficient and clear way to address fees for buildings, building permitting and inspections,” Collard said. “Basically, in a nutshell, what we have is outdated and what we are proposing creates efficiencies with everybody that works on these everyday.”
Some of the proposed changes include:
Annual inspection from $120 to $160
Annual Re-Inspection 1 from $120 to $180
Annual Re-Inspection 2 from $120 to $200
Annual Re-Inspection 3 from $120 to $220
First Re-Test of Fire Final & Protection System Test from $60 to $250
Second Re-Test of Fire Final & Protection System Test from $120 to $350
Third Re-Test of Fire Final & Protection System Test from $180 to $450
The numbers are also proposed to increase for daycare annual inspections. For those with fewer than 25 children, the fee would go from $60 to $200 and for those with more than 25 children, the cost would be $300, instead of the current $120.
Additionally, the department is looking at turning to a matrix based fee schedule for automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems and commercial plan review.
New fees would also apply to: High-Piled Combustible Storage Plan of 500 square feet or more in-house review and approved third party review; access control system permit; new and remodel systems up to 30 heads; sprinkler hydrostatic testing; static water tank review; false alarms three times in 30 days; mobile vendor trailer; emergency responder radio; working without a permit; emergency call box; and after hours inspections.
Dillon Polk, fire marshal for North Hays County Fire Rescue, also proposed a new fee for unauthorized burning, which would be $90 per hour plus $180 per hour per fire engine, with a two-hour minimum.
“Now, we have a burn ban in effect. If we were to show up, we’ve had people that burn time and time and time again,” he said. “Sometimes, we have a neighborhood feud over here off of Timberline [Road] or somewhere like this that they continue to burn and we ask them, ‘Hey, stop. Please stop.’ We don’t have a way of enforcing that.”
Following the presentation, council member Geoffrey Tahuahua asked how much it costs to deploy an engine for two hours to respond to a brush fire.
“Our cost is overtime, so our average overtime costs about $80 an hour, so $160 for that and the fire truck on the ground, it depends on how many miles it rolls. I would say an average of $100 or so to put a truck on the road,” Collard responded.
Tahuahua said it’s dangerous and extremely careless to burn during a ban, especially in terms of the damage, so he wants to ensure that the cost is being covered and if there would be any benefit to increasing the fees even more to discourage people from doing it.
He then asked if there would be a benefit to leave the fee as presented for first-time unauthorized burning, but, if it’s the second time that North Hays County Fire Rescue is called out within a calendar year to the same place, then the fee doubles.
“I would be inclined to say yes, sir,” Collard said.
Later, Tahuahua suggested to amend the unauthorized burning fee to be $500 for the first offense for a two-hour minimum — $90 plus $180 for any hour over the initial two hours — and then, for the second offense in a calendar year, the fee doubles, while tripling for the third.
“If you have to go out there a fourth time or, by God, if you have to go out there a third time, my expectation is we are taking them to some kind of court because, at that point, it is becoming negligent,” Tahuahua said.
Council member Sherrie Parks asked if it’s only considered unauthorized burning if it’s happening during a burn ban.
Polk responded that no, it would follow state law as what is defined as unauthorized burning. He said the fees could be separated out, however, for during and not during a burn ban.
Tahuhua said he likes the idea of separating the two, but there should still be an escalation of at least doubling what that initial fee is, even when there is not a burn ban. He said his scale — what he proposed — should be used for burning during a burn ban.
“I want to make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing,” Tahuahua said.
Planning
According to planning director Tory Carpenter, for the most part, the current fees have been working well, but over the past year, there are a few that are missing.
This includes a license to encroach fee of $250, which is designed to cover the cost of reviewing license to encroach applications — this happens when a private party is using public property or right-of-way.
“[Licenses to encroach] does take a relatively significant amount of staff time, including coordination with other departments, as well as the city attorney, and a lot of back-and-forth with the applicant,” Carpenter said. “So, we looked at similar application fees and we found that $250 was a reasonable amount to help recoup some of that staff time to work to get those finalized and put them on an agenda.”
A tree removal waiver fee of $100 was also proposed. The waiver originated from the new Landscaping Ordinance and is for the cost of staff and review of tree removal waivers.
“That’s per request and it could be one request includes six different trees, but we can lump it together for one request, one presentation to the Development Review Committee,” Carpenter said.
Council member Taline Manassian suggested having the historic district in Dripping Springs be exempt from having to pay the license to encroach fee.
“I only ask that because I know we had all of the issues with Old Fitzhugh … and I would hate to add a layer of expense for those areas, where we are actively trying to help them make improvements,” she said.
Parks agreed that they should waive the fee for the historic district.
Dripping Springs Ranch Park
There are a few amendments to Dripping Springs Ranch Park’s (DSRP) current fee schedule that were proposed to be corrected and added, which included the recently donated dressage arena with letters and the change of the outdoor arena fees to cover the new outdoor arena.
New fees include a full day booking of the outdoor arena Monday through Thursday for $150 and Friday through Sunday for $350 or $200 if rented with the main area. Booking the new dressage area would also be $350 or $200 if rented with the main area.
Farmers Market
Proposed changes to the fees for the Dripping Springs Farmers Market, according to Parks & Community Services director Andrew Binz, include:
Elimination of the annual membership fee
Offset by $2 booth fee increase across the board
Application fee increase from $30 to $40.
The purpose of these changes is to streamline the process for vendors and staff so that they are only paying for the application fee and booth fee, not an annual membership fee.
Parks
The Parks & Community Services Department proposed creating one category for business or organization and eliminating the “within the city limits” and “outside city limits” options, as the fee is rarely used at all, said Binz.
Also, the department wants to change the additional lifeguards for rentals with more than 50 people from one lifeguard per 25 people to one lifeguard per 50 people.
“Whether there are 25 more people or 50 more people, the need for lifeguards remains at four for a pool our size,” Binz said. “Anything over 100 people that the pool would require additional lifeguards, that would be at the aquatic manager’s discretion.”
Binz said they also want to add the following fee options to pavilion rentals:
Electricity at $10 extra
Pavilion Lawn Area: Resident at $15/hour and non-resident at $25/hour
Lastly, he requested changing the Commercial Activity in a Park Permit Fee from $30 per day to $50 per 90 days for residents and $75 per 90 days for non-residents, as well as the Itinerant Vendor License Application Fee from $30 per day to $50 per 90 days for residents and $75 per 90 days for non-residents.
Building
Since 2022, the Building Department has nearly tripled in size without a corresponding permit fee increase to cover costs, as residential fees have not been updated since January 2020 and commercial fees have not seen a change since February 2009, according to building official Shane Pevehouse. Currently, the fees only fund 59% of the department’s operating costs.
From May 2024-2025, the operating costs were as follows, to which the department had a deficit of $862,260 during that timeframe, Pevehouse stated.
Third party residential and commercial plan review and inspections: $1,146,020
Salary and compensation: $735,291
Supporting staff: $144,625
Vehicles: $30,420
IT equipment and software: $16,133
Permit fees collected: $1,237,476.40
The department proposed fee increases for full funding, as well as new permit fee formulas to eliminate any guess work for customers and improve accuracy for calculating permit fees. This includes implementing “all inclusive” fees, which, according to Pevehouse, would: make forecasting permit costs easy for customers.; reduce administrative time required to calculate fees; reduce data entry errors; decrease customer wait times and more.
The first proposal would be an all inclusive permit fee of $1.20 per square foot — conditioned — of a new residential project.
The difference between the current and proposed fees is as follows:
2,000 square feet: $2,400 proposed, $1,679 current
3,000 square feet: $3,600 proposed, $2,047 current
4,000 square feet: $4,800 proposed, $2,397 current
“It is a drastic number, but we are tackling a couple of different things here simultaneously,” Pevehouse said.
If the proposed fees had been in place between the timeframe of May 2024-2025, then the department would not have been in the negative, rather it would have been up $7,066.
Council member Travis Crow said that he understands the proposal in order for the city to not lose money, but the builder is going to argue about affordability: “I understand that we have to make decisions and we are not going to lose money as a city, but be aware that they are going to say, ‘This is going to affect affordability of houses out here.’”
There are also several other increases to permit fees, such as phasing out the compounding reinspection fee. The doubling reinspection fee accounts for the majority of the reinspection fees collected at 58% — the largest single reinspection fee collected for residential was $3,200 and commercial was $6,400. According to Pevehouse, removing the compounding effect of doubling will make budgeting more predictable and a flat reinspection fee covers the department’s expenses for the time to conduct the reinspection.
So, for residential projects, instead of the reinspection fee varying, there would be a flat fee of $150 and, for commercial, it would be $250.
Following the department’s presentation, several across the dais laid out concerns on implementing an increase in fees at this time.
“Doesn’t ad valorem and sales tax typically go in the general fund and start offsetting some of these departments that can’t pay or don’t pay their own way? So, are we going to go through every department and make you self-sustaining — is that the goal here? Where does this end?” Mayor Bill Foulds asked. “These costs are going to add costs to the homes in this town and affordability is the biggest problem we have with our homes right now because we were negligent in increasing fees in the last 10 years or whatever, we are taking this huge step.”
“Let’s just raise ad valorem tax if you want to show how strong we are,” the mayor continued. “Nobody wants to do it, but that’s essentially what we are doing … We are discouraging people to move to Dripping Springs when we get it this expensive and I have a real problem with it. We are at a budget that is very close to being funded. Why do we need to raise these fees this much at this time?”
Tahuahua agreed that there are some fees in the presentations that are “quite excessive” and it does require more deliberation; however, he said that his ultimate goal for Development Services would be like an enterprise fund where it is covering just itself and is not dependent on the general fund.
Manassian said that she does not have an issue with working toward the department funding itself, but she added that she does not “have a problem as much with charging new construction. I am more concerned with how we are handling existing residents and improvements they want to make … I am less interested in encouraging new construction as I am taking care of the people who are already here. I don’t know if there are fees where you could make it more palatable for existing residents versus builders.”
Pevehouse responded, saying that the proposed increase in fees for all inclusive is $700 more than the current number for a 2,000 square-foot house on a 30-year note, which, according to him, is “not even noticeable for your monthly payment.”
“Teachers, firefighters [and] policemen can’t live here now. So, to say something is not even noticeable doesn’t mean anything. If you can’t buy a t-bone steak now and it goes up $0.10 a pound, you’re right, it’s not hardly anything,” Foulds said. “But you have eliminated people who would want to move here who we need desperately.”
Manassian said that the city does not want to do large size lot reductions to get entire neighborhoods of small lot sizes, which could have a greater impact than the fees would.
Tahuahua agreed, stating that it’s appropriate to figure out the fees and work out nuances, but at the end of the day, “if you truly want to affect affordability, do the exact opposite of our large suburb to the east of us and actually make it as easy as possible to build different housing options in our city limits.”
Ultimately, following Tahuahua's motion, council voted 3-2 to approve only the fees presented by North Hays County Fire Rescue, including the amendments made to unauthorized burning. The new fees will go into effect Oct. 1. Manassian and Crow were the dissenting votes.
To listen to the full fee schedule presentations, council’s deliberation and view meeting agendas, visit www.drippingsprings-tx.municodemeetings.com.
Dripping Springs City Council meets next at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16.
