1 Martin McTaggart
From: Thomas Morgan II
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2026 11:54 AM
To: City Council (San Mateo)
Subject: Agenda item 12 fee schedule update
Dear Council
If I am reading the fee schedule correctly, it appears the multi-family permit is more expensive than office/commercial permits. This is troubling as we are having a housing shortage and keep asking why developers are building office instead of housing this is part of the problem.
I also wanted to clarify application of the commercial linkage fee. Do these include tenant improvements to office (initial build out)? Comparing housing and office there is still a lot of work to be done when an office is turned over to the tenant that is potentially not being adequately captured and charged/allocated.
I also want to confirm the commercial linkage fee does not have a CPI cap annually. If so, we should revisit the commercial linkage fee as inflation and costs have increased substantially and may not be keeping up with current costs.
Commerical is also a broad category. I can appreciate trying to keep the schedule simple. But there are different flavors of commercial retail, office , lab, etc. I would think there is differing complexity with each. Perhaps charging more to office and lab space and less to retail to attract small businesses downtown and smaller business districts.
Thomas Morgan