That didn't include any hook up fees. Those were extra. All it did was pay for planning leeches at city hall. He had the option of paying a $1,500 to private reviewers in order to expedite. That kinda shows you the real cost.
If Americans want to price their kids out of single family homes, make a lot of unneccessary hurdles. There are bureaucratic critters eager to help. Our parents managed just fine without 6 month of plan review (translation: sitting in a stack). Somehow, everyone feels the need to micro-manage the activities of their neighbors with heavy-handed and expensive cockroaches at city hall. It's almost to the point where I cheer someone going postal.
Ronald Reagan was a great believer in user fees ~ that's the idea that those who want to make use of a government service should pay for it.
Planning and Zoning, although usually not thought of by someone who wants to build or develop as being necessarily good ideas, really do serve to keep the highrise pigfarms out of residential areas.
Rotterdam, Nederland, in fact, recently faced the prospect of someone want to build a 30 story pigfarm, all properly vented, of course, adjacent to a residential area.
$12,000 is less than the price of an Hyundai Elantra, just about the least expensive small car you can get that can seat 5 adults! No doubt the house being built on the lot is going to be worth $100,000 or more when it's done. I would certainly hope I was getting the best talent money can buy in the town's planning office because they're going to be the guys who defend that new house on that lot against other folks in the area who want to do things your brother might think should be farther away!