Commercial Impact Fees

Overview

Impact Fees provide one way to help ensure that existing residents will not bear the cost of capital improvements and services necessitated by new development. Commercial development is assessed Transportation, Fire and Law Enforcement impact fees. Multifamily projects are also assessed Parks & Recreation and School impact fees.

Process

Construction documents for commercial and multifamily projects are initially submitted to Plans Coordination for routing to other departments for review.

After approval by Building Safety, Impact Fees are assessed at the rate in effect on the date of the issuance of the building permit in accordance with the Orange County Impact Fee Ordinance.

• Impact fees are paid when the permit is issued.
• For a change of use, credits will be applied for the previous use of the structure.
• Exemptions for the replacement of previous structures on the property must be indicated by referencing the Demolition permit number on the Building Permit Application.
• Pre-paid impact fee credits will be applied to the building permit after submittal of an original executed assignment request to the Concurrency Management Office.
• A Deferred Impact Fee Application must be submitted to the Impact Fee office prior to issuance of the building permit.
  • Commercial and Multifamily projects with a permit valuation of at least $1,000,000.00 may defer Law and Fire impact fees until prior to authorization of pre-power and may defer Transportation impact fees until issuance of a certificate of occupancy.
  • Parks impact fees may only be deferred by a Certified Affordable Multifamily housing project.
  • For an eligible commercial project or eligible certified multifamily affordable housing project, the impact fee for the entire project shall be paid when pre-power is authorized for the first building or the first certificate of occupancy is issued.