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Submittal Fees Poll

A

Alias

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Does your jurisdiction charge a fee at the time of submittal of an application for a permit?

1. Always

2. Never

3. Depends on the project

If you are charging a submittal fee, how much?

If no submittal fee, why not?

Background - I am redoing the fee schedule for my jurisidiction and am looking to add a $35.00 processing fee at time of submittal for major projects. I am researching on whether or not other jurisdictions charge a submittal fee and how to determine the fee.

I'm presenting at City Council in about a week and would like to have more information for them. I have a couple of council members who weren't really thrilled with the idea when it was mentioned to them.

Thanks,

Sue, where the west still lives.......
 
Not at the time of submittal, only when the permit is issued. We figure our permit fees based on square footage and type of project.
 
We never charge a fee for the application. Our fees that we collect now fund our department without the need for supplemental fees from the general fund. If we ever require help from the general fund then we will look at other methods in order to fully fund our department.
 
We require the plan review fee of 45%/permit fee be paid for on anything over $20K.
 
I don't work for a building department... but all of our local building departments charge fees at time of application. In addition to this, tmany have piled on % fee surcharges for "administration", "records maintenance", even "fee calculation processing" (being charged to figure out how much to be charged). City of LA also has one-time charges to do "grading pre-inspection site review" and "geotechnical report review" before they will even accept plans for plan check.

Many cities will also require a "preliminary plan review" process (along with fees) to get initial evaluation by all city departments prior to formal submittal for plannign entitlements. Wtih the exception of planning department and fire dept access comments, the rest of it is a waste of time. The CBO's comment is usually "comply with code"... gee, thanks, that's really helpful feedback.
 
Mule said:
We never charge a fee for the application. Our fees that we collect now fund our department without the need for supplemental fees from the general fund. If we ever require help from the general fund then we will look at other methods in order to fully fund our department.
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And therein lies my dilemma. At this time, most of my funding is coming from the general fund. Fees here have been so low for so many years that there is no way to be self-funding. I am playing catch-up on the fees and running into 'opposition' from councilmembers.

Sue, where the west still lives..........
 
No fees collected until the permit is issued. If like most one person building departments you wear many hats. Therefore your permits fees should not be expected to cover 100% of your operating cost.
 
Alias said:
And therein lies my dilemma. At this time, most of my funding is coming from the general fund. Fees here have been so low for so many years that there is no way to be self-funding. I am playing catch-up on the fees and running into 'opposition' from councilmembers. Sue, where the west still lives..........
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We also receive a large amount of our funding through the general fund, if we had to be self supporting fees would be too high compared to other towns in the area.
 
Sue,

We collect a plan review fee of 1/3 the total permit fee at time of application on all projects $10,000 and over. We found we were doing too many plan reviews for permits that were never issued due to funding problems, the economy or whatever. This at least compensates us for the staff time to do the plan review.

We are not an enterprise fund department. Still attached to the City's general fund. However we historically have brought in more money that our operating costs and budget by about 25%. Last couple of years with the downswing in the economy, we have been given other duties (property maintenance inspections, swimming pool inspections, fire safety occupancy inspections) that are funded directly from the general fund. Am glad of that now because if we were living on the permit fees right now we would be running about a 7% deficet. So thanks to the general fund paid inspection duties we have, everyone is still employed.

One fee to consider Sue is after hour and emergency inspections. We use to be barred from charging for after hour inspections, just had to do them and pay the inspector overtime, but no additional fee. We now charge $50.00 per hour if the inspection is a direct continuation of the inspectors work day and $50 per hour with a 4 hour minimum if the inspector has to be called back in. It is not making us rich, but it covers the overtime budget. And on things like electric service rebuilds, the contractors are concentrating on getting the job done before 5 since it costs them money. Use to make no difference to them if we had to pay overtime to get a citizens power back on.
 
$100 to drop off your building permit application. Additional fee incurred when you pick it up.

Problem we had was people applying for permite, we would do the review and issue the permit, and they would never pick them up. In those situations we had hours wrapped up in a permit that were not compensated.
 
TT -

I'm not an enterprise fund either, general fund only. I have a very lean budget - heck, can't afford to buy the new set of code books, I downloaded them off the web. ;)

I am currently at 3/4 time and have had no raise for four years. I am trying to keep my job at at least this level, anything less and I will have no benefits except for a little CalPERS. As I am entering year four of cancer remission, I am getting nervous about my health care coverage if I were to lose it now.

I have the after hours fee in place already. I have had one after hours inspection in the past couple years.

Sue, where the west still lives.........
 
TimNY said:
$100 to drop off your building permit application. Additional fee incurred when you pick it up.Problem we had was people applying for permite, we would do the review and issue the permit, and they would never pick them up. In those situations we had hours wrapped up in a permit that were not compensated.
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Tim -

This is what I have run into, someone comes in and spends a couple of hours of my time, then never follows through with the project. I think the submittal fee is appropriate. Unfortunately, not all of my bosses think so. :rolleyes:

Sue, where the west still lives...........
 
Sue you could always credit the application fee towards the permit fee. Net cost to applicant is the same.. provided they pick it up.
 
The full permit fee is part of a complete application. Residential work is calculated per sq ft, and commercial jobs are based on the contractors bid price complete with award letter or other verification.

This is the first regional building dept. I have heard of that 'pays its way' from permit & other fees.
 
TimNY said:
Sue you could always credit the application fee towards the permit fee. Net cost to applicant is the same.. provided they pick it up.
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This is always an option Tim, thanks.

Sue, where the west still lives...............
 
we take a plan check deposit based on estimated permit fee. fee gets subtracted from the permit fee at issuance. i have been burned too many times for hours worked on plans and no permit issued for various reasons. i'm a one man dog and pony show that has met or exceeded my budget for the past ten years on permit revenue only! charge a plan check fee!
 
pwood said:
we take a plan check deposit based on estimated permit fee. fee gets subtracted from the permit fee at issuance. i have been burned too many times for hours worked on plans and no permit issued for various reasons. i'm a one man dog and pony show that has met or exceeded my budget for the past ten years on permit revenue only! charge a plan check fee!
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pwood -

I too am a one person show, juggling many hats, and have had the same thing happen. So, what I'm going to do is call the submittal fee a non-refundable deposit for plan check fees. If they think folks will balk at a $35.00 submittal fee, just wait until they have to plunk down a couple hundred when applying for the permit.

Sue, where the west still lives.........
 
No fees collected until permit issuance.

Additionally, we use third party consultants to do reviews due to limited staff/expertise.

Our problem arises when we incur third party fees, and applicants disappear. The former Building Chief had been trying to collect a deposit to cover these fees, but the Board was opposed to it.

We've been burned before, and sure to be burned again.

mj
 
Sue,

When I first came to the jurisdiction I am at now the department was waaay behind on the fees that they should have been charging. My council was not wanting to go up on fees either so what I did was present them with a graph of what other cities charged and where we were on the scale.

I explained to the council that this was a user fee and that it would not be fair to the rest of the citizens to pay for services they were not receiving from our department. The fee should cover the expenses of the department without taxing (key word here...they love that word) the citizens in order to fund something they may not use and take away monies from other areas of the general fund that could be used for other services.

I laid out a plan to increase the fees over a three year period so it wouldn't be such a blow to the contractors. We use the ICC BVD sheet to determine the valuation. The first year I took that data and charged 80% of what the fee would have been. The next year we did not raise fees at all. The third year we went with the BVD across the board with no discounts.
 
We don't charge an application fee or a plan review fee, we only charge the permit fee that is paid when the permit is picked up. We charge per square foot for new constructions and per estimated construction cost (based on the amount stated on the application) for remodels and additions. We also add on a charge per inspection. To top that off, we are still working off fees calculated in 1963.
 
should collect some fee up front... (we never did when I was building official).. but what if they never pick up the permit? we started charging a $15 admin fee for every permit, but didn't collect it until they picked up the permit. There can be a significant amount of labor attached to plan review and the admin piece. (OK.. the project doesn't get funding.. they don't respond to plan review comments and drop the project).. need to cover the cost of the labor up front.. especially now.

However you do it (as a deposit towards fees).. it should represent the time involved.. for the plan review and intake, anyway.

Don't give it away (now, saying that and you being able to sell it to higher management may be two different things). In this economy, one needs to cover the costs.

Just sayin'
 
Our office does not use money from the general fund, so it is vital that we collect fees for the services we provide. That said, most of our permits require a $32 application fee up front, some permits also require plan review fees up front. Both of those up front costs go toward the total of the permit cost, they are not "additional". They are just due upon submittal instead of at the end. The only thing due at the end is the actual "permit fee". So, if you never get the permit, the "permit fee" is never due. You've paid for the service you've received, no more, no less.

We've just recently implimented this, but it seems to be working out pretty well. Much like the previous posts stated, we've been burned in the past way too many times providing hours of research and plan review only for the job to get cancelled and we were left with no compensation for the service we provided.
 
Mule -

Thanks for the good arguement, mind if I plagerize it? ;) City Council is tomorrow, I'll be arguing to at least collect part of the plan check fee up front.

Sue, where the west still lives...................:cowboy
 
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