Announcing 2022 Film Fee Changes:
TSZ costs blending into Daily Permit Fee starting Jan 1, 2022
As part of a recent regulatory redesign of the Street and Traffic By-Law, Vancouver City Council recently approved changes to the fee structure for the use of streets and the creation of temporary no stopping zones. The new regulation was created primarily with the construction and development sector in mind and if applied to the film industry would result in a significant increase in permit costs for filming. Fortunately, as part of the redesign, we were able to have film industry fees decoupled from the Street & Traffic by-law to prevent this, or any future Street & Traffic by-law changes, from impacting film permitting fees.
As a result, beginning January 1st, we will stop charging fees from the Street & Traffic By-Law for no stopping zone signage and meter hooding and instead add $300 to cover the average costs for signage labour and material into the daily flat Daily Film Activity Fee, increasing it from $1,000 to $1,300. For further transparency, over the past 12 months the Film & Special Events Branch has issued 663 street use permits and incurred $210,000 in labour and materials for the installation of no stopping signs related to film permits, which as an average of $317 per permit. Additionally, this is all inclusive of any inflationary adjustments since the current film permitting fees came into place in 2020.
This change would move us even further along the path of having less complexity in our fee structures and simplifying production’s ability to budget costs on a simple flat rate basis. We have received nothing but positive feedback on this flat rate approach from local Producers and Location Managers and we believe moving further in this direction will be well received locally.
Additionally, starting January 1st, 2022, the updated daily fee of $1,300 would be fully eligible for the clean energy incentive reduction, reducing the total cost including parking signage to $650. Currently the additional costs for signage fees is not reduced when a production qualifies for the clean energy incentive. As a result, qualified productions would realize a net reduction of about $115 to their daily permit costs of $765.34 ($500+$150.51+114.83).
Furthermore, in order to ensure that ultra-low impact productions are not negatively impacted by a fee increase in 2022, we will be increasing the deduction for ultra-low impact production from 80% to 85%. This will result in a decrease from the current $200/day fee to a discounted fee of $195.
For context this incentive is currently given to about 12% of productions that meet the follow criteria:
· less than 15 persons
· minimal equipment
· minimal parking
· no traffic control
· no diesel generator
· no curfew extension
What happens after Jan 1st, 2022?
When budgeting costs for City of Vancouver film permits productions can use the following new fees:
· Daily Activity Permit $1300
· STOP budgeting for separate TSZ signage and hooding fees
· Apply appropriate incentive reductions (clean energy 50%, Ultra-Low Impact 85%)
The following fees currently in place will continue unchanged in 2022:
· Lost Meter Revenue: $600/Downtown $300/not Downtown
· Late Night/Early Morning Surcharge, $2,000/night (clean energy incentive eligible)
· VPD call out charges
· Special work orders and requests billed a costs