City of Austin & Travis Co. Development Fee Increases

Recent Site Plan Review Changes

​The Development Services Department has been working toward the 45 improvements to the site plan process recommended by consultants last year. RECA has been involved in the process since the beginning—we recommended an overhaul of the site plan process to the Mayor, were engaged in discussions with consultants, and have been meeting with DSD since the process kicked off to provide input and recommendations.

You can find the status of each of the improvements at this website.

DSD also highlighted new tools and guides designed to speed up the review process that you may not know about:

• Site Plan Protocol for New Comments and Re-Review
• Comment Resolution Process
• Applicant Guide for Site Plan Application Pre-Submittal Consultations
• Applicant Guide for Site Plan Application Post-Review Cycle Meetings
• Site Plan Performance Metrics
• Directory of Services

If you aren’t signed up for DSD’s email list, we encourage you to sign up at this link to get news directly from the department.

City of Austin Development Fee Increases

For the 2024-2025 City of Austin budget, DSD is proposing some fee increases to more closely reflect cost of service and stabilize the department through a year of lowered development volume.

​You can see the proposed fee schedule in the City’s draft budget here.

If Council votes to approve these fees on August 14, they will take effect October 1, 2024.

Travis County Development Fee Increases

The Travis County Commissioners Court voted on Tuesday, July 23 to approve staff’s recommended 143% fee increases on development fees, as well as the addition of new fees. You can find the fee schedule here. These are the first fee increases by Travis County since 2016, and are intended to increase cost recovery of fees to 90% from 20%. The fees will go up on September 1, 2024.

​RECA sent a joint letter to the Commissioners Court along with the Homebuilders Association, Austin Board of REALTORs, and Austin Apartment Association asking staff to tie the fee increases to performance improvements. Staff put the letter in the Commissioners Court meeting backup and presented improvements as a direct result of the letter.
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Travis County staff also laid out recent and upcoming improvements to the County development review process, directly citing our letter and responding to the points we raised.