SEAL BEACH : Developers to Pay Some Inspection Fees

Developers will now have to pay for the time that city employees spend inspecting building sites as part of a fee plan approved last week by the City Council.

The move is expected to save the cash-strapped city thousands of dollars a year, said Lee Whittenberg, the planning director.

The fees will apply only to large developments that require specific environmental mitigation measures, not to routine building inspections for home additions and other small projects. The fees will range from $40 to $140 an hour.

Under state law, the city must monitor for compliance of city-imposed mitigations measures.

Mitigations--which might range from landscaping work in front of a development to a specific height limit for a building--are often required by the city on larger developments as a way of lessening a project’s impact on the surrounding community.

The city will charge an hourly rate of $40 for city employees plus a 13.6% hourly city overhead fee. Work by the city attorney will be billed at about $140 an hour.