Fee Schedule

Starting April 1, 2019 the Everett Fire Department’s Fire Marshal’s Office implemented a new fee schedule for annual building inspections and system testing.

The fee schedule covers fire and life safety inspections, multi-family buildings, vacant buildings, building shells, shared spaces and systems. A similar fee schedule was implemented in January of 2019 for construction permit fees, which incorporate plan review and field inspections conducted by the Everett Fire Department. 

The fee schedule is designed to offset the cost of conducting inspections and system testing, which are outside of the normal operation and response activities and services of the fire department. The cost of providing inspections will be allocated to the individuals or businesses that require those services, rather than being funded by regular public safety taxes.

Fees correspond to the square footage of the building or business. Additional fees may be added if hazards exist that require operational fire permits as defined in the adopted International Fire Code. If deficiencies are located and not corrected after the first complimentary re-inspection visit, additional compounding fees will be assessed until the deficiencies are corrected. The Everett Fire Department is one of the last departments in the region to implement these fees; other comparable departments use a similar fee structure for safety inspections.

Listed below is a summary and explanation to help you understand different components of the fee schedule. To see the actual schedule and tables referenced in the summary please see Fire Marshal’s Office Fee Schedule.

FIRE MARSHAL'S OFFICE FEE SCHEDULE SUMMARY

CONSTRUCTION PERMIT FEES

  1. Plan Review
  2. Fire Alarm & Systems
  3. Extinguishing Systems

Plan Review 1

The Commercial Building Plan Review fees encompass all general commercial building plan review and field inspection conducted on construction projects. The Commercial Building Plan Review fees do not include Fire Alarm & Detection Systems found and Automatic Fire Extinguishing Systems.

The fees were determined by estimating time for plan review and field inspections based on construction valuation, allowing the proper charges to be applied based on time to review and inspect. Utilizing the construction valuation prevents over-charging for small projects and charges the appropriate amount for larger projects that take more time to review and inspect.

The Everett Fire Department uses the same valuation format as the Everett Building Department. This format allows developers and contractors to estimate permit cost.

FIRE SAFETY INSPECTION FEES

  1. Inspected Square-Footage
  2. Multi-Family
  3. Vacant Buildings
  4. Building Shell/Shared Spaces
  5. Re-Inspections
  6. Operational Permits
  7. Fire Permits

All Fire Safety Inspections conducted on commercial buildings/business throughout the City of Everett will be assessed with an Inspected Square-Footage fee.

Exception: Multi-Family Buildings, some Vacant Buildings, Building Shells, and Public School District school sites.

Basic Square FootageInspection Square-Footage fees are based on a basic inspection of a building at that particular square footage.

Table 2A

Operational Permits fees will be added to the base Square-Footage fee. A list of applicable Operational Permits as defined by the International Fire Code can be found in the Operational Permits tab on the left.

ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPRESSION FEES

  1. Cost Recovery
  2. Investigations
  3. Preventable False Alarms

These fees are intended to help with recovering Fire Department costs related to incidents caused from arson or incidents caused by negligence of an individual. The fees include equipment or apparatus that may have been contaminated, damaged, destroyed, or lost while providing services, labor costs per hour, and vehicle equipment cost per hour including overhead.