City hall has been ramping up its fee structure on everything lately, with the offsite levy really kicking in, the unfair way it calculates the asphalt degradation charges, and the surface improvement estimate. With the surface improvement estimate, the work is done at City rates, so there is no way to get the cost down. I find the surface improvements can be quite costly, especially when they try and get you for the streetlights as well. I never understood how a builder should pay for new streetlights that are on City property, and are used by the entire City. It isn't like a homeowner has a switch to shut off a streetlight near their bedroom window. Fortunately at the recent project there were no streetlights, so that could not be used as a way to increase the fee. The concrete cost is the largest I've seen to date on any of my projects. This is a byproduct of the lack of lane access so we need front driveways and new curbs. I guess we need to hope that the attached garage built form is attractive to the future owners so we can recoup the cost of the work.
It always hurts when these fees kick in before construction begins. These fees take a lot out of the budget that is needed to build the house, and the surface improvement wont be done until 2019. It would be far better if the surface improvement was paid for when it was built, not in advance. That is like financing City Hall operations for free for a year, and builder financing cost is far higher than City financing.