Salinas | Permits and Fees

Salinas Permits, Appeals and 2026-27 Planning and Impact Fees

New homes in Salinas need a building permit, often a planning approval first, and a set of one-time fees. A development impact fee is a charge on new building that pays a share of the sewers, streets, parks and public buildings the new homes will use. This page explains who decides each application, the notice, appeal and expiry rules in Chapter 37 of the Municipal Code, and the planning and impact fee amounts the City Council approved for the year starting July 1, 2026. See the Salinas overview for the whole guide.

Who Decides Each Application

Sources: Salinas Municipal Code 37-60.020, 37-60.500 and 31-603.2; Sections 37-50.250 and 37-50.335 as added by the Phase 1 ordinance.

Salinas has three deciding bodies, "The city planner," "The planning commission" and "The city council," set out in Table 37-60.10. The city planner, appointed by the City Manager, decides administrative permits, which are approved "without public notice or hearing," site plan reviews, lot line adjustments and parcel maps. A ministerial decision like these is a staff check against fixed rules. A discretionary one, like a conditional use permit, lets the decision body weigh the project and attach conditions. The Planning Commission decides conditional use permits and variances that are not administrative, and the City Council decides rezones, general plan amendments, specific plans, planned unit developments, development agreements and tentative maps after the Commission's advice.

Some permits move between levels. An administrative conditional use permit goes to the city planner, who mails notice to owners "within three hundred feet of the subject property at least ten days prior to the city planner's intended date of approval." If no protest comes in, the city planner decides; a protest sends the application to a hearing. The city planner may also "refer any decision on an application to the planning commission if the application raises substantial land use issues." Public hearings are noticed in a newspaper "at least ten calendar days prior to the hearing."

Applications, Appeals and Expiry

• Completeness. For discretionary applications the city planner says in writing whether an application is complete "no later than thirty days after an application has been received" (Section 37-60.090).
• Preliminary project review. An "optional review process available to the applicant on a voluntary basis," a meeting with staff with "No approval or denial" (Sections 37-60.140 to 37-60.160).
• Appeals. "Appeals of decisions by an applicant or any interested party shall be initiated within ten days of the decision." The hearing is held "within sixty days of the city's receipt of an appeal" and is "de novo," heard fresh (Sections 37-60.1290 and 37-60.1300).
• Effect of an appeal. "Decisions that are appealed shall not become effective until the appeal is resolved" (Section 37-60.1280). A Council decision on appeal is final when announced.
• Site plan reviews. Effective when the permittee signs and returns the approval "within ninety days of the approval date," and expire "one year after its effective date" unless a building permit is issued and construction "diligently pursued" or the use is established (Sections 37-60.280 and 37-60.310).
• Administrative permits. Effective "on the date of approval by the city planner," and expire "one year after its effective date" unless a building permit is issued and construction diligently pursued, a certificate of occupancy is issued, or the use is established (Sections 37-60.200 and 37-60.210).
• Conditional use permits. Expire "one year after its effective date" on the same tests, are recorded with the Monterey County recorder, and run with the land despite "changes in ownership" (Section 37-60.540).
• Withdrawals. A refund is possible "less any staff and administrative costs," and "No refund shall be made where the development application has been noticed for hearing" (Section 37-60.130).

State deadlines govern the staff-level housing approvals. The new ADU and SB 9 sections set sixty days for a decision on a complete application and deem an ADU approved if the City misses it. Map deadlines are on the lots and subdivisions page.

Planning Fees From July 1, 2026

Source: FY 2026-27 City-Wide Schedule of Fees and Service Charges, column "Recommended Fees Effective 7/1/26," adopted by the resolution approved April 21, 2026. A technology surcharge is not included in the table.

The City Council adopts the schedule each year. The resolution, approved April 21, 2026, adopts "the attached schedule of fees and service charges," "specifically identified in the column entitled 'Recommended Fees Effective 7/1/26'," effective July 1, 2026. Most planning fees rose 2.2 percent with the consumer price index. The schedule notes that the planning fees exclude the technology surcharge, and it charges building permit and plan check fees separately in the building section.

Housing projects can trigger other planning fees in the same schedule: an "Affordable Housing Plan Review" of $2,000 for 2 to 9 units, $4,000 for 10 to 25 and $6,000 for more than 25, a "Density Bonus Plan Review" of $2,000, and a residential landscape plan review of $169.50. Planning inspections for residential projects of 1 to 9 units, ADUs and junior ADUs are $336.75 each.

Impact Fees on New Homes

Sources: impact fee resolution, Exhibits A and B1 and Exhibit B2, effective July 1, 2026; Salinas Municipal Code 9-48, 9-50.13, 9-50.81 and 9-50.90.30.

Salinas sets its impact fees in Chapter 9. Section 9-41 says "Every person who constructs buildings shall pay a development fee for park fee, street tree fee, storm sewer trunk line fee, and sanitary sewer trunk line fee in accordance with fees as adopted by resolution of the city council." Separate articles add the traffic fee, the regional development impact fee that Salinas collects for regional road projects of the Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC), and the public facilities fee for fire, police, library, recreation and parks. Each fee is indexed each year to the Engineering News Record Construction Cost Index.

The April 21, 2026 resolution found that "the ENR Construction Cost Index increased 2.8% during the period from January 1, 2025, to January 1, 2026," and raised the fees by that amount "effective July 1, 2026." The public facilities fees for homes are set by home size. For a single-family home of 1,000 to 1,499 square feet the FY 2026-27 schedule lists fire $355.00, police $1,968.00, library $1,399.00, recreation $778.00, park $6,839.00 and Park (Quimby) $7,957.00; a home of 3,000 to 3,999 square feet pays more, with park at $8,381.00. A separate, lower schedule applies to senior units. In the West Area and Central Area Specific Plans the park impact fee is a flat amount per home instead.

• Timing. Residential fees are "due and payable at issuance of a certificate of occupancy," and commercial fees before the building permit (Section 9-48). The traffic, regional and public facilities articles use the same split.
• School fees. "The fee shall be paid before the issuance of a building permit," with the amount per home "set by resolution of the council" (Section 9-50.13).
• Additions. "Any addition of enclosed building space to a single-family dwelling shall be exempt" if it keeps the building a single-family home (Section 9-44).
• Rebuilding. New space within five years of a demolition on the same parcel is exempt "to the extent of the number of square feet and the number of bedrooms removed" (Section 9-44). Traffic fees give credit for an earlier use and charge only "if there is an intensification of trips generated" (Section 9-50.80.1).
• Affordable homes. Each "governmentally assisted low income housing unit may be exempt from a portion of each fee," as the City Council decides (Section 9-44).
• ADUs. Government Code 66311.5 bars impact fees on an ADU of 750 square feet or less and a junior ADU of 500 square feet or less, and the new Section 37-50.250 repeats that rule.

The public facilities fee rests on the state Mitigation Fee Act, "Government Code Sections 66000-66008," so that new building "contributes its proportionate share of the costs of new public facilities." It applies to "New development," which includes new construction and conversions that add to the demand on City services, and leaves out "any addition or modification to a single-family dwelling" that keeps it a single-family home. If the City requires a developer to build a facility the fee would pay for, the fee is "reduced to reflect a credit equal to the cost of the facilities or improvements." The City Manager may accept land or buildings in place of fees. Each year the finance officer reports "development fee related revenues and expenditures on an individual fee account basis" to the Council.

Where City Documents Disagree

• Draft label. The FY 2026-27 schedule attached to the approved resolution is titled "DRAFT." The resolution adopts its "Recommended Fees Effective 7/1/26" column, so those are the amounts used here; ask the City for its final printed schedule.
• Blank rows. Exhibit B2 lists a "4000 sf+" row for houses and for senior units with no amounts. The fee for homes of 4,000 square feet or more is not stated in the record.
• ADU fee exemption. Sections 9-44, 9-50.80.1 and 9-50.95.35 still print a five-year ADU impact fee exemption from 2019, while the new ADU section and state law set the 750 square foot rule.

Where to Go Next

Related on VanPlex: the Salinas overview, the California impact fees page and the CEQA and permit streamlining page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Official sources (checked October 2026)