California Development Impact Fee AB 602 Website Requirements

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 fees in California. The new website requirements from AB 602 perfectly align with this goal.  Essentially, AB 602 aims to create a complete snapshot of the impact fees that are easily accessible to the public.

With the United States Supreme Court siding with the plaintiff in the Sheetz v. El Dorado County court case in April of 2024, impact fees in California are under significantly more scrutiny.  Being out of compliance with the website requirements of AB 602 is an instant red flag that no public agency can afford.

The website requirements can seem arduous, but when weighed against the possibility of having impact fees that cannot be defended in court, the effort of being in compliance far outweighs the consequences of not being in compliance.

Below are the website requirements for AB 602 for California Development Impact Fees:

A Public Agency shall:

A.    Make the current development impact fee schedule available on the Agency’s website.

B.    Post residential affordability requirements on the Agency’s webpage.  This requires that a certain percentage of households are affordable for rent or sale for households with moderate income, lower income, very low income, or extremely low income.

C.   List current water and sewer connection fees, if applicable.

D.   List all zoning ordinances and development standards that will specify the zoning, design, and development standards that apply to each parcel.

E.    Post the current five and previous annual fee reports or the current and five previous annual financial reports.

F.    Post an archive of impact fee studies, cost of service studies, or their equivalent conducted on or after January 1, 2018.

G.   Update all information related to impact fees or AB-602 within 30 days of any changes.

H.   The Agency shall post all impact fees charged to individual developers on its website, which needs to be updated twice a year (this is RCS’ interpretation from AB 602, Section I (3) (A)).

I.      It is recommended that the Agency post a disclaimer on its website noting that the Agency is not responsible for the accuracy of the information received regarding impact fees received by developers.

If you have any questions about AB 602 or development impact fees in general, please do not hesitate to contact RCS. We are always more than happy to help any Agency navigate the confusing laws and requirements of development impact fees.