Opinion ID: 1202187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Changing Amount of the Fee

Text: Finally, TAB points out that the fee has been set at four different levels and argues that this fact alone demonstrates that the fee is arbitrary and also makes it clear that considerations of equity and fairness have taken a back seat. The City explains its initial two-step fee phase in as an attempt to mitigate the impact of the fee on builders who had work in progress on the date the fee was adopted, and to provide such builders with the opportunity to factor the fee into their plans. The City argues that these grounds for classification, along with the presumption of reasonableness, provide a rational basis for the phase-in fees. Likewise, the amendments to the permanent fee, ultimately reducing it to $66, were based on changed circumstances which came to the City Council's attention and were set out in the preambles to the amendatory ordinances. Like the decision to impose the fee, setting the fee amount was a legislative choice made by the City Council. Again, assuming that TAB introduced probative evidence of unreasonableness based on the fee structure, the justification offered by the City was sufficient to make the issue fairly debatable.