CC 07-01-2025 Item No. 13 FY 2025-26 Fee Schedule Update_Written Communications (2)1
Lauren Sapudar
From:Rhoda Fry <fryhouse@earthlink.net>
Sent:Tuesday, July 1, 2025 1:18 PM
To:City Clerk; City Attorney's Office; City Council; Cupertino City Manager's Office
Subject:Public Comment 7/1/2025 #13 Fees
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Dear City Council,
Please put a pause on escalating fees and consider looking at the cost side.
Furthermore, we don’t need resource recovery on all services.
When people get building permits for their projects, it makes our buildings and City safer.
Yes, we should pay fees – but the escalation of fees is out of hand.
Thanks,
Rhoda Fry
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Lauren Sapudar
From:Nomad Urban <urbanznomad@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, July 1, 2025 12:20 AM
To:City Council; Tina Kapoor; City Clerk; Benjamin Fu; Luke Connolly; Chad Mosley
Subject:Please NO increasing of existing fees
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Dear City Clerk,
Please include the below in written communication for the 07/01/25 city council meeting agenda item on fee
increases.
Subject: Objection to Misleading Staff Report and Unsustainable Fee Increases – Agenda Item 13 (07/01/25)
Dear Mayor Chao and Cupertino City Council,
I’m a Cupertino resident writing to express serious concern about the staff report for agenda item 13 on the
July 1st agenda. While the report states that “no new fees are proposed” for departments such as planning,
building, and engineering, it fails to clearly disclose that most existing fees are increasing by 9.7%. That’s a
substantial and recurring increase, and presenting it without transparency is deeply misleading to the public.
I urge the Council to require a revised report that clearly outlines department-by-department increases in actual
dollar amounts. The language used in the current report minimizes the impact and misleads both residents and
policymakers.
These increases are tied to the cost recovery policy adopted in 2024 and are largely driven by rising employee
benefit costs like pensions and healthcare. This is not a one-time issue—it’s an annual, compounding burden
that I and many others believe is not sustainable.
Rather than approving another near-10% increase on residents, I believe the Council should revisit the 2024
cost recovery policy and consider rolling it back. There should be a serious exploration of alternative ways to
fund employee-related costs without passing them directly to residents year after year. A proper study
comparing Cupertino’s absolute fee levels—not just the percentage increases—with those in neighboring cities
like Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and San Jose is essential. We need to understand where Cupertino
stands, especially for individual line-item fees, and identify areas where our residents are paying more than
their counterparts elsewhere.
If these increases must happen, then cost shifts should be prioritized away from residents and toward non-
resident users, commercial operations, or rental groups that use city services and facilities. And if none of that
is workable, then we need to look seriously at restructuring staffing—possibly reducing full-time roles and
transitioning to contract-based positions to ease the long-term cost burden on the city.
I respectfully ask that you delay action on this item until these issues are addressed in a clear and revised staff
report. This issue matters deeply to me, and I know many others in our community are paying attention.
Decisions like this will certainly shape how I vote in 2026.
Thank you,
Urban Z
Cupertino Resident
3
Lauren Sapudar
From:Peggy Griffin <griffin@compuserve.com>
Sent:Monday, June 30, 2025 5:52 PM
To:City Council
Cc:City Clerk
Subject:2025-07-01 City Council Regular Mtg-ITEM13 FY2025-26 Fee Schedule UPDATE-TOO
MUCH!
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PLEASE INCLUDE THIS EMAIL AS PART OF THE WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE ABOVE COUNCIL MEETING
AGENDA ITEM.
Dear City Council and StaƯ,
REQUESTS:
#1-Update all Nexus Studies ASAP. (See my comments below regarding this.)
The City must update all it’s Nexus Studies ASAP! Prices have gone sky high, even since just 2020 much less 2015!
#2-Find a way to reduce the cost of some permits for safety issues to encourage people to get the permits such as
for water heater replacement and fence exceptions.
Sincerely,
Peggy GriƯin
P.S. These are my questions and concerns regarding some of the proposed fee increases.
ATTACHMENT B – FY 2025-26 Fee Schedule B – Engineering Fees (Redline)
When reading the proposed fee changes in Schedule B it feels like the residents are paying the brunt of the costs
when
PAGE1 – Everything on this page is proposed to increase 9.7% due to labor costs (StaƯ Report)!
Q1: Yet, there is NO INCREASE to Transportation Impact Fees! Why? Update the Nexus Study!
PAGE3 – Park Land Dedication in-Lieu Fee
I’ve read the fine print below the table. The fee is based on “appraised values of land sales”. Looking at FY 2024-25
and FY 2025-26 NO CHANGES in land values occurred!
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Q1: “Appraised values” – Is this the land value after only sales or does it include transfers of land/property at lower
prices?
Q2: Our home values, yes, even the land values according to the County Tax Assessor continue to go up every year
on our property taxes. Why does it not increase here?
Q3: Why is this fee not updated at the same time as all other fees?
ATTACHMENT C – FY 2025-26 Fee Schedule C – Planning Fees (Redline)
EVERY entry for Planning Services is proposed to increase 9.7% or more! This impacts home improvements,
remodels, and permits for fences, etc. Then on top of these individual increases, the overall Planning Department
Review fee is 20% of the total Plan Check and Inspection fees!
NOTE: When prices are too high for doing required home maintenance and improvements legally, people will not
get the required permits! This is a safety issue and a potential loss of any income at all to the city.
EXAMPLE: $5,126 for a fence exception for R1 and R2!
EXAMPLE: Preliminary Application Review for diƯerent sized development plans seems to weight the cost more
heavily the lesser the # of units.
- 6 units can cost either $9.627.00 or $14,862.00. I’m not sure which applies
- There is a big diƯerence between 50 units and 3,000 units yet they both cost $21,451.00.
Again, this Schedule D only increases the Housing Mitigation In-Lieu Fees by 2.7% (CPI) because the fees are
based on VERY OLD Nexus Studies
- 2015 and the 2020 Non-Residential Nexus Analysis by Keyser Marsten
- 2015 Nexus Study
5
The City must update all it’s Nexus Studies ASAP! Prices have gone sky high, even since just 2020!
6
Lauren Sapudar
From:Srividya Sundaresan <vidya.sun@gmail.com>
Sent:Monday, June 30, 2025 4:39 PM
To:City Council; Tina Kapoor; City Clerk; Benjamin Fu; Luke Connolly; Chad Mosley
Subject:Agenda Item 13 (07/01/25)
Follow Up Flag:Follow up
Flag Status:Flagged
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the
sender and know the content is safe.
Dear City Clerk,
Please include the below in written communication for the 07/01/25 city council meeting agenda item on
fee increases.
Subject: Objection to Misleading Staff Report and Unsustainable Fee Increases – Agenda Item 13
(07/01/25)
Dear Mayor Chao and Cupertino City Council,
I’m a Cupertino resident writing to express serious concern about the staff report for agenda item 13 on
the July 1st agenda. While the report states that “no new fees are proposed” for departments such as
planning, building, and engineering, it fails to clearly disclose that most existing fees are increasing by
9.7%. That’s a substantial and recurring increase, and presenting it without transparency is deeply
misleading to the public.
These increases are going to place an enormous financial burden on residents who already pay heavy
fees for any activity that requires city approval such as a home remodeling. We have been shocked by the
high fees imposed on us at every stage of our planning and approval process for a home remodel. To
have such fees go up by almost 10% is quite inconceivable.
A proper study comparing Cupertino’s absolute fee levels—not just the percentage increases—with
those in neighboring cities like Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and San Jose is essential. We need to
understand where Cupertino stands, especially for individual line-item fees, and identify areas where our
residents are paying more than their counterparts elsewhere.
If these increases must happen, then cost shifts should be prioritized away from residents and toward
non-resident users, commercial operations, or rental groups that use city services and facilities. Since
the need for increased revenues largely comes from staff compensation needs, we also need to look
seriously at restructuring staffing—possibly reducing full-time roles and transitioning to contract-based
positions to ease the long-term cost burden on the city.
I respectfully ask that you delay action on this item until these issues are addressed in a clear and
revised staff report. This issue matters deeply to me, and I know many others in our community are
7
paying attention. Decisions like this will certainly shape how I vote in 2026.
Thank you,
Srividya Sundaresan
Cupertino Resident