By "fees" they mean "hidden, illegal taxes that were not passed by a vote". Archive: https://archive.today/iwag7 From the post: >>When it comes to building a new home, labor, materials and land costs dominate. But there is a fourth expense item that has weighed heavily on builders and pushed up prices. Just over a tenth of what a new single-family home costs in metro Denver goes to cover the development fees that local governments charge builders — and those fees can vary widely depending on where a home is being built, according to a study from the Home Builders Association of Metro Denver. “Fees are a very big challenge, and they have tended to be higher in metro Denver than in other places in the country. It is a big chunk of the cost for a new home, and they have gone up a lot in the last five or six years,” said Aaron Foy, owner of BLVD Builders, a small builder active in Denver, Aurora and Castle Rock.