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Accessibility

ZoneFee is built for real estate developers, investors, land-use attorneys, and underwriting researchers, and we want the site to be usable for everyone in those roles - including readers who navigate by keyboard, who rely on a screen reader, who set reduced-motion preferences in their operating system, or who use browser zoom or high-contrast modes. This page describes what ZoneFee does to support that, what is currently outside our scope, and how to tell us when something blocks you.

Commitment

ZoneFee aims to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.x) as a practical reference for design and code decisions. We do not claim a formal conformance level (such as "WCAG 2.1 AA conformant") because we have not commissioned a third-party audit and we want this page to reflect what we actually do, not a label that implies more.

What we do build for in practice:

  • Keyboard navigation. Every link, button, and interactive control on a ZoneFee page can be reached and activated with the keyboard. The site uses a visible "Skip to main content" link so keyboard users do not have to tab through the header on every page.
  • Screen-reader compatibility. Pages use semantic HTML (headings in order, landmark regions for header / main / footer, table headers for fee tables, lists for grouped content) so a screen reader can announce the page structure and let users jump between sections.
  • Reduced motion. ZoneFee does not autoplay video, animate large hero elements, or use motion as the only way to convey information. The site respects the operating system's reduced-motion preference where animation is used at all.
  • Light and dark themes. A persistent theme toggle is available in the header. Both themes use color contrast aimed at the WCAG 2.x AA contrast guidance for normal text.
  • Browser zoom. Pages are built with relative units so that browser-level zoom (up to 200%) reflows content without horizontal scrolling on common desktop and mobile widths.
  • Plain language. Page copy avoids unnecessary jargon. Where a fee term is technical (impact fee, proffer, MUD, PID), the term is linked to the glossary so a reader can confirm what it means.

Scope

The accessibility statement above applies to:

  • Page content authored by ZoneFee on the zonefee.com domain - including jurisdiction master pages, fee-type subpages, state gateways, the homepage, system pages (about, contact, privacy, terms, disclaimer, site map, FAQ, corrections, methodology, data sources, changelog), the glossary, and the educational guides.
  • Site navigation, the header, the footer, the breadcrumb, and the theme toggle.
  • Fee tables published by ZoneFee, including their headers, captions, and source citations.
  • JSON-LD structured-data markup published on each page.

The statement does not extend to:

  • Content embedded or linked from third-party government sources (city, county, authority, or state-code pages), including PDFs hosted on jurisdiction websites. The accessibility of those documents is set by the issuing jurisdiction or authority, not by ZoneFee.
  • Third-party browsers, screen readers, assistive technology, or operating-system settings - their behavior depends on the user's environment.

Known limits

We try to be honest about where the site falls short today. Current items we know about:

  • Long fee tables. Some jurisdiction pages contain wide fee schedules with many columns. On narrower viewports these tables scroll horizontally inside their container. We have prioritized keeping the source values intact and readable; a more compact mobile-first table format is a future improvement.
  • External PDFs. Where a jurisdiction's official fee schedule is published as a PDF, ZoneFee links to the PDF directly. Some of those PDFs are scanned images or use complex multi-column layouts that are not fully accessible to a screen reader. ZoneFee transcribes the relevant fee values into HTML tables on the jurisdiction page so the source content is also available in an accessible form on the ZoneFee page itself.
  • No alternative summary view. ZoneFee does not currently offer a "simplified" or "high-contrast-only" presentation toggle beyond the existing dark/light theme. Users who need higher contrast or larger text rely on browser-level controls.
  • Map UI deferred. A geographic coverage map is not yet built. When a map is added, it will be paired with an equivalent text representation of the same coverage.
  • No formal third-party audit. ZoneFee has not commissioned an external WCAG audit. The accessibility approach above reflects build practice, not a formal certification.

How to report an accessibility barrier

If something on ZoneFee blocks you from reading or using a page, we want to know. Email contact@zonefee.com with:

  • The URL of the page where you encountered the issue.
  • A short description of what you tried to do and what stopped you (for example, "tab order skipped past the fee table on Loudoun County" or "the source link list was not announced as a list by NVDA").
  • Optionally, the browser, operating system, and assistive technology you were using.

We read these reports, and we treat keyboard, screen-reader, and contrast issues as priority fixes. We do not promise a specific response time because ZoneFee is a small operation and we want to be honest about that. We will reply, and we will fix issues we can fix.

For other site policies, see Privacy, Terms, and Disclaimer. To submit a fee-data correction, see Corrections. For the general contact policy, see Contact. For the full directory of pages, see the Site Map.

Last updated: 2026-05-09