About ZoneFee

Why ZoneFee Exists

Development fees - impact, zoning, utility tap, and proffer - vary jurisdiction by jurisdiction and shift with each adopted ordinance. Confirming the current schedule for a city, county, or special district before underwriting a site, drafting a pro forma, or filing a rezoning is non-trivial: official documents move, fee tables are buried in codified ordinances, and third-party summaries go stale fast. ZoneFee solves this by publishing verified fee data anchored to a primary .gov source for every figure, with a stated effective date and the date ZoneFee last reviewed it.

ZoneFee is built for real estate developers, land acquisition teams, underwriting analysts, investors, and land-use attorneys. The data is structured for due-diligence research rather than consumer disclosure or policy commentary.

How ZoneFee Is Different

• Official-source discipline. Every fee figure on ZoneFee is traced back to a named, dated, and linked primary government source. Estimates, projections, and third-party aggregator data are excluded by policy. See the methodology page for the full source hierarchy.
• Independence. ZoneFee is not affiliated with any city, county, special district, state agency, or federal agency, accepts no payment from jurisdictions for inclusion or placement, and does not run sponsored listings or advertised fee data.
• Documented limitations. Where a fee category cannot be confirmed from an official source, the page says so explicitly rather than estimating. Limited-coverage jurisdictions are excluded from search and the public site map until final official-source review can confirm them.
• Open correction process. If a fee amount, effective date, or source URL appears outdated or contradicted by an official source, anyone can submit a correction via the corrections page or the contact page with a primary .gov citation, and ZoneFee will queue the correction for review.

Who Maintains ZoneFee

ZoneFee is founded and maintained by Munib Ur Rehman as an independent, official-source research project focused on U.S. development fee schedules - impact fees, utility tap and connection fees, zoning application fees, proffers, and related jurisdiction-level fee frameworks that matter when evaluating a real estate development site, deal, or market.

Munib's background is in building public-facing educational reference sites and structured research tooling, including NationalTaxTools.com - an independent educational resource on U.S. federal and state tax topics built around official-source calculators and reference guides - and in supporting digital operations, bookkeeping, and payroll workflows at LMN Tax Inc. ZoneFee applies the same official-source-first, source-anchored approach to the very different topic of development fee research.

Independence and Government Affiliation

ZoneFee is not affiliated with any city, county, special district, state agency, or federal agency. Quotations and links to .gov sources appear throughout the site, but ZoneFee's editorial process, scope, and publication decisions are independent of any government entity, jurisdiction, utility, or development-side trade group. ZoneFee receives no compensation from jurisdictions for inclusion, placement, or fee-schedule prominence, and does not accept sponsored listings, paid placement, or advertised fee data. Sources are documented in the data sources page; the editorial standard for what gets published is documented in the methodology page.

What ZoneFee Is

ZoneFee collects, structures, and publishes development fee data from official government sources for U.S. cities, counties, and special districts. The data covers four categories:

• Development impact fees - statutory or ordinance-based fees collected at permit issuance for new construction (roadway, water, wastewater, parks, fire, police, schools where authorized).
• Zoning application fees - application costs for rezoning, special use permits, planned development, variances, plats, and related land-use submittals.
• Utility tap and connection fees - capital cost recovery and meter installation charges levied by water, wastewater, and electric utilities.
• Proffers and exactions - voluntary or negotiated contributions used in jurisdictions that operate under proffer-style frameworks (notably Virginia under Va. Code § 15.2-2303).

ZoneFee is built for real estate developers, investors, land-use attorneys, and underwriting researchers who need a fast starting point on fee exposure when evaluating a project, a deal, or a market. It is not a consumer site, a tax site, or a refund-help site.

For details on how data is sourced and verified, see the methodology page. For the current list of covered jurisdictions, see coverage.

How ZoneFee Is Maintained

ZoneFee is maintained as a working research project. New jurisdictions are added when official, accessible fee documents can be identified, retrieved, and verified against the criteria in the methodology page. Existing records are re-checked under a rolling maintenance workflow that aims for a 12-month review interval as a target rather than a hard guarantee, and individual records are re-verified earlier when an official source publishes a fee change that comes to ZoneFee's attention.

Each published page lists its primary sources by name, document title, and direct URL, along with the date the source was last accessed. Where a fee category cannot be confirmed from an official source, the page says so explicitly rather than estimating.

Coverage today is concentrated in Texas, with growing records in Maryland and Virginia. ZoneFee is not nationally complete and does not claim to be. New states and jurisdictions are added as official documents permit reliable sourcing.

ZoneFee does not accept paid placement, sponsored listings, or advertised fee data. The only contact path for corrections, coverage requests, or general questions is contact@zonefee.com.

Professional Boundaries

ZoneFee is a research and reference tool. It is not a law firm, an engineering firm, a planning consultancy, a brokerage, or a permit-filing service. Munib Ur Rehman is not a lawyer, a licensed engineer, an AICP-certified planner, a Certified Public Accountant, an Enrolled Agent, a real estate broker, a public official, or a government employee, and ZoneFee does not represent itself as offering services in any of those capacities. The project is jurisdiction fee data sourced from official documents, organized for fast lookup, with sources cited so a developer or analyst can verify everything before relying on a number.

What ZoneFee Does Not Provide

• No legal advice. ZoneFee does not provide legal counsel on entitlement strategy, zoning interpretation, vested rights, exactions doctrine, or land-use litigation. Use a licensed attorney.
• No financial or underwriting advice. ZoneFee does not produce pro forma outputs, return projections, or deal-level recommendations from its fee data.
• No engineering or planning advice. ZoneFee does not certify utility capacity, traffic impact, or site-specific infrastructure requirements.
• No tax advice. Development fees are distinct from property taxes, sales taxes, and income taxes. ZoneFee makes no representations about the tax treatment of fees paid.
• No guarantee of accuracy or currency. Fee schedules change. Always confirm binding fee amounts with the relevant city, county, utility, or special district before relying on a number for a financial or contractual decision.
• No comprehensive national coverage claim. ZoneFee covers a growing but limited set of jurisdictions. The current scope is reported on the coverage page.

Use of ZoneFee is governed by the terms of use and the data use disclaimer. See the privacy policy for what information ZoneFee does and does not collect.

Where to Go Next

• Methodology - source hierarchy, confirmation standards, freshness review cycle.
• Coverage - the live jurisdiction list with state and page-type filters.
• Texas · Virginia · Maryland - state hubs.
• Guides - due-diligence checklists and impact-fee primers.
• Contact and corrections - request coverage or submit a fee correction.
• Data sources and changelog - the full named-source list and the public update log.