The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Sheetz v. El Dorado  court case has made the Nollan/Dolan Standards prominent in discussions...

AB-1600 (1989), later Chaptered as Government Code 66000, identified and codified the process and nexus effort required to calculate and...

AB 602 came into effect on January 1, 2022. One of the Assembly Bill's main goals was to create more transparency for development impact...

Over the many years of calculating development impact fees, RCS has largely worked with cities/public agencies that have had significant...

The Master Facilities Plan (MFP) is a valuable tool for effective urban planning and development. It serves as a comprehensive, long-term...

1927 - State creates (requires) authority for cities/counties to prepare a General Plan. 1955 - Circulation and Land Use Elements...

An Echo City Buildout is a new type of city structure that we are encountering on the development impact side of RCS. The term Echo City...

Your public agency is experiencing development, so, to get out in front of it: 1. You have a development impact fee calculation and...

Can Development Impact Fees (DIFs) cover operational costs? This question eventually comes up in every DIF meeting I have ever attended...

On September 8th of this year, I had the opportunity to attend the League of California Cities annual conference as a speaker. I’m kind...

2022 brought into law a new effort to standardize Development Impact Fees with the passage of AB 602, which, among other things, requires...

As a fee consultant, the question that I get asked most often is, “How often should we be updating our fees?” Once I dispose of the...

I’m going to keep this short, but I think it’s powerful. It’s about what happens to your saved money over time. I was recently contacted...

The last thing I ever needed to hear from one of my clients was “We are being sued over our impact fees”. Never fun. But that is just...

In July of 2017, I wrote my first RCS article about Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in which I merely identified the differing types of...

There are four players in the development game: developers, contractors, landowners and residents. Each plays a critical role, and each...

Most every municipal finance officer is aware of the five findings (in Government Code §66000) required to adopt development impact...

At about every other Council or town-hall meeting I attend there is the question about whether development fees (planning fees, permit...

The land-use database inventory is the spine of any Development Impact Fee (henceforth DIF) calculation effort.  It is a data table that...

As the typical reader of the RCS blog articles, you are a technically skilled government finance professional and can make a strong...