Feat question for a Solo game (3.5)

[WrathMage]

Right, I wanted the Playgrounds opinion on the following:
I am about to start a solo Eberron game set in Sharn (where else?) and the player in question will be running an inquistive, and the game will focus on investigation and intrigue. Its a low-op game, starting at 4th level and the player in question is building a Human Rogue.

He wanted to take the feats Research and Urban Tracking, as they were flavoursome, and he thought they did useful things. However looking at them as a DM, they look to me to be things that should simply be skill tricks/uses and shouldn't require feat slots to do. What are your thoughts on this? Give them away for free or make him spend slots on them?

EDIT: Thought I would put that this is 3.5 to make it clearer.

[Rizban]

Frankly, it's a solo game. You don't have to worry about him outshining other players or making other people feel useless. Just give them to him as bonus feats based on his "training as a detective" or something. That's the easiest solution.