How ZoneFee Sources Fee Data

Official Sources First

Every fee figure on a ZoneFee jurisdiction page is traced back to a named, dated, and linked official source. A page does not publish a fee without one. Where a fee category cannot be confirmed from an official source, the page says so explicitly rather than estimating, rounding, or borrowing from secondary writeups.

The general principle is straightforward: if a fee number cannot be supported by an adopted ordinance, an official fee schedule, or a fee document hosted by the issuing jurisdiction or authority, ZoneFee does not publish it as fact. See the methodology page for the detailed verification workflow that supports this rule.

Source Hierarchy

When more than one document touches a fee, ZoneFee prefers sources in this order:

1. Adopted ordinances and resolutions. The legal instrument that creates or amends the fee is the strongest source. Where an ordinance or resolution is published as a signed PDF on the jurisdiction's website, that PDF is the canonical reference.
2. Official city, county, or state fee schedules. Schedules published by the relevant department - planning, development services, public works, building, engineering - that consolidate the fees in a single document and carry an effective date.
3. Utility authority fee schedules. Where water, wastewater, or electric service is administered by an authority distinct from the city or county, the authority's own published fee schedule is used for those fees.
4. Official planning and development services pages. Department landing pages that publish the current fee figures inline (not just as links to other documents) are accepted when they correspond to an underlying ordinance or schedule.
5. Council packets and staff reports. When published by the jurisdiction as part of a public meeting record and used as the document of record for a fee adoption or amendment.
6. PDFs hosted by the jurisdiction or authority. Where a fee schedule is published as a PDF on a `.gov` or equivalent official domain, the PDF itself is the source.

Multiple sources for the same fee are normal. Where a current schedule and the underlying ordinance both exist, ZoneFee links both and uses the more current document for the published figure.

What Does Not Count as Proof

The following are not accepted as primary sources for any fee figure on ZoneFee:

• AI answers and AI summaries. Output from chat assistants or generative search products is not a primary source. ZoneFee may use such tools to pressure-test research, but never to establish a fee.
• Third-party summaries and aggregator sites. Real-estate blogs, consultant whitepapers, fee-comparison spreadsheets, and aggregator databases are not authoritative regardless of how authoritative they appear.
• Outdated blog posts and articles. Even when correct at the time of writing, secondary articles do not qualify as a current source for a published figure.
• Unsourced PDFs. A PDF that is not hosted on the jurisdiction's or authority's official domain, and that cannot be tied back to an adopted ordinance, schedule, or staff report, is not accepted.
• Unofficial spreadsheets and copied tables. A table copied from an official document, even when accurate, is not the source - the original document is.
• Paid databases without a primary citation. Subscription products that summarize fees without linking to the underlying ordinance or schedule do not qualify as proof.

If a fee figure can only be supported by one of the above, ZoneFee does not publish it.

How Source Conflicts Are Resolved

Where two official sources disagree on a fee, the newer adopted ordinance or official schedule wins. Where the conflict cannot be resolved from the documents on hand - for example, an older adopted ordinance and a current department page that show different figures without a published amendment in between - the page either holds the family in limited / noindex coverage or flags the conflict explicitly on the live page.

ZoneFee does not silently pick a number when sources disagree. Either the conflict is resolved against a clearly newer instrument, or the page makes the disagreement visible and points users to the issuing authority for confirmation.

Verified vs. Limited Coverage

A jurisdiction page on ZoneFee can be in one of two practical states:

• Verified. The jurisdiction record has at least one fee family confirmed against an official source with a current effective date. The page is indexable, listed in the XML sitemap and the site map, and shows fee figures with dated source links.
• Limited / noindex. The jurisdiction record exists and one or more fee families have been honestly closed-searched against official sources without surfacing a current schedule. The page may carry a noindex tag and may not appear in the public site map until additional sources can be located. This state is intentional - it is how ZoneFee avoids publishing fee data that cannot be verified.

The coverage page shows which jurisdictions are currently live. The site map lists every indexable page on ZoneFee. Pages that do not appear in either are either not yet built or held in limited / noindex coverage. See the data use disclaimer for what to do with any number you find here before relying on it for a project decision.

Reporting a Source or Data Issue

If a source URL on a ZoneFee page is dead, an effective date is wrong, or a published figure no longer matches the official document, send the correction to contact@zonefee.com. The full submission workflow lives on the corrections page.