For jurisdictions · counties, cities, utility commissionsModel clause MC-6 · drafted to sit inside an existing development agreement

DICA

Adoption

You do not need a new ordinance. You need one clause and a funded reviewer.

The determination is not the product — the clause is. A jurisdiction adopts DICA by writing into the development agreement that assurance is sized under a named version of the standard, reviewed by an assessor the jurisdiction directs and the applicant funds, and released against stated conditions rather than elapsed time.

Adoption kit

Model assurance clause — MC-6, with drafting notes
Peer-review funding mechanism — applicant-funded, jurisdiction-directed
Assessor conduct and conflict rules
Release and step-down schedule template
Staff briefing memo — three pages, plain English
Objection handling — developer counsel’s arguments, with answers

Download the kit

What adoption actually involves

Name the version

The agreement cites a specific version of Part A. Later revisions do not reach back into an executed agreement, so the applicant knows exactly what it agreed to.

Who: county counsel

Fund the reviewer

The applicant pays into a review account; the jurisdiction selects and directs the assessor. This is the same mechanism used for third-party plan review, and it is what makes the number independent.

Who: planning & finance

Set the instruments

Class A performance obligations may be met by surety; Class B monetary obligations may not. The clause states which instruments count and at what credit.

Who: counsel & risk

State the release

Assurance steps down as conditions are satisfied and evidence improves — not on a calendar. Release is the applicant’s incentive to keep proving.

Who: counsel

Model clause — excerpt

MC-6.2 Determination and review

(a) The Required Financial Assurance shall be determined in accordance with the DICA Standard, Part A, version 0.6.0 (the “Standard”), as of the Determination Date, and shall state the parameter set and engine build under which it was computed.

(b) The determination shall be prepared by an assessor selected and directed by the County and funded by the Applicant through the Review Account established under §4.3. The assessor owes its professional duty to the County notwithstanding the source of its fee.

(c) Each input to the determination shall be bound to the document from which it is drawn, identified by cryptographic digest and located span. Where a bound document is subsequently amended or withdrawn, the determination shall be marked stale and recomputed within thirty (30) days.

(d) The Applicant may at any time submit improved evidence in respect of any input. Where such evidence changes the determination, the Required Financial Assurance shall be redetermined and any excess released within sixty (60) days.

Read the full clause and drafting notes →

What the applicant’s counsel will say

This is an unfunded exaction dressed up as arithmetic.

The requirement attaches only to costs attributed to the project and not already covered by an instrument standing ahead of the community. Attribution and protection are both computed and both disclosed — so the objection resolves to a specific input, which can be argued on evidence rather than on principle.

Your consultant’s number is unreviewable.

It is reviewable line by line. The function is published; the inputs cite documents by digest; a second assessor recomputing from the same record must reach the same number or identify the input on which they differ.

You are pricing your own fee off the number you set.

No fee under this standard is indexed to the amount of assurance determined, and the assessor conduct rules prohibit it. That prohibition is a conformance condition, not a policy preference.

The requirement will make the project uninvestable.

Most of a first-pass requirement is uncertainty loading, not exposure. Independent review of the largest self-attested inputs typically removes a material share of it — and unlike a negotiated number, the reduction is earned by evidence and survives a change of administration.

Cost to the jurisdiction

Staff time, not budget

Review is funded by the applicant through the review account. The county’s cost is the time to select the assessor and to read the determination.

Timeline

Inside the existing entitlement clock

The determination is prepared against documents the applicant has already produced. It does not add a review cycle; it gives the existing one a defined output.

Defensibility

A record, not a judgement

What survives challenge is a reproducible computation over cited documents. That is a materially different posture from a negotiated figure with no stated basis.

The model clause is drafting material, not legal advice. Jurisdictions should have counsel adapt it to local enabling authority, procurement rules, and the instruments their treasurer will accept.