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Submittal Fees Poll

I want to thank everyone for their input, suggestions, arguments, etc. I go before City Council tomorrow night and I feel that I am now well armed. I'm going with the deposit argument.

I'll post the outcome after the meeting.

Sue, where the west still lives......:cowboy
 
Alias said:
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.
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Take it and run...... RUN SUE RUN!!!!

Good luck. Let us know what happens.
 
Sue:

I was going to wait until I got my permit on the "new house" that I have successfully been classified as a "remodel in Santa Clara County, but since you are going tonight I'll tell you what the submittal fee was now. I paid $5,929.80 based upon my estimate of a $1 million remodel (yeah, we all know how we contractors give cost estimates to AHJs). In the past permit fees have usually been double plan check fees so I was anticipating about a $12,000 permit fee, but I was eating lunch with a fellow contractor the other day and he asked what my permit fee was going to be, I told him about $18,000 total, he said: "Good luck, the City of Lafayette just charged me $6,000 for a plan check fee on a million dollar remodel, then slammed me with a $56,000 permit fee, they are now adding all the new home fees to remodels, including park dedication, and the big one, affordable housing."
 
Does your jurisdiction charge a fee at the time of submittal of an application for a permit?

Only commercial only pays fees for both permit and review at time of submittal.

Rest when they pick up permit.

FWIW. When I first started I was working where there were bunches of permits that were never picked up. Went that way for about a year or so. Think we were getting $20 for a house and $100 for commercial for a deposit. After a change in supervisors the boss went to the county and asked for the new code (94 at the time) and full fees paid at time of submittal. (Seems that there was 30-40K in permit fee in the unpicked up plans.)

The other thing he managed to get in was a starting fee per app. The basic fee per app was $35.00 and was set to the cost of living. This was back in 1994-1995. When I left there the basic fee was hovering around $55.00 or so. His reasoning was it took about an hr to imput and do a basic check of plans to see if everthing was submitted before it went anywhere(planning, review, fire etc). So his way of figuring was double the salary of his top person to cover expenses.
 
CA -

And the contractors here gripe about the cost of permits..........give me a break. :pitty

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

As you are aware state law considers fees that turn a profit to be taxes and illegal under the California Constitution; however, they all do it to help pay the costs of employees and their skyrocketing salaries and pensions. There was an article in the paper today with Walnut Creek bragging that they made $100,000 on increased building permit fees.

Contra Costa Times said:
Also showing improvement is income from the city's building department, which has seen a gain in projects and permits, according to a city report. This translates to an extra $100,000 a year.¹
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¹ http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_17547263?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com
 
Several of the municipal governments around here are given the permit charges away or defering them to stimulate their economy. Be hard to raise fees here IMO. We donot charge untill the permit is picked up and no review charge either.
 
Our permit and plan review fees do not exceed 2% of the contract price. If that makes or breaks a project (stimulates the economy) then the project is probably underfunded before it starts. Now our impact fees are placed on the tax roll over a 5 year period that can be 10's of thousands and it does help to get larger projects out of the chute without burdening the existing residents with future impact cost.
 
For residential we ask for a $500 plan review deposit, which is applied against the final fees. For Commercial projects we require 50% of the plan review fee up front. After you've been stiffed for fees on plan review a couple of times, you know you should charge something up front.
 
ewenme said:
For residential we ask for a $500 plan review deposit, which is applied against the final fees. For Commercial projects we require 50% of the plan review fee up front. After you've been stiffed for fees on plan review a couple of times, you know you should charge something up front.
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A good point, I'm tired of all the 'free advice' The city and the taxpayers are ultimately paying for the time I spend working on no go projects.

Sue, where the west still lives...........
 
The fee schedule passed, 4-1. Stumbling block for the dissenter (former contractor) was the $50.00 reinspection fee. I explained that that this was only applied when there are multiple reinspections and that it is in the code but, he was andament that this is what the original permit fee is for. We'll be revisiting this privately at a later date. The good thing is that he wants to work on the fee schedule, maybe increase it some.

Sue, where the west still lives...................:cowboy
 
Alias said:
The fee schedule passed, 4-1. Stumbling block for the dissenter (former contractor) was the $50.00 reinspection fee. I explained that that this was only applied when there are multiple reinspections and that it is in the code but, he was andament that this is what the original permit fee is for. We'll be revisiting this privately at a later date. The good thing is that he wants to work on the fee schedule, maybe increase it some. Sue, where the west still lives...................:cowboy
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Way to approach it Sue.

We have that re-inspection fee but have yet to use it here.

Where I was originally I use that all the time in re-reviewing plans. Took some builders there a while to figure that we needed all the info on the plans the first time. Then they'd fax in truss sheets and I would wonder down the hall and copy them (billing them for the time and the copies) until they submitted everything the first time.

Two things stand out from that time:

1. Had one designer that drew all kinds of footings that could be used on two seperate sheets and included them until I finally got it across to him that we only needed what was happening on that job. That took years.

2. This contractor that installed metal buildings would show up with a floor plan and want a permit. Told him I needed the metal building (Butler), special inspection forms, and floor plan and if need the final construction if finishing the building. What? Took him about 2-3 years to figure out all that. Then years later he's in for a permit with all the stuff in hand and walks out with a permit for the building shell. Says to some guy in line complaining about the review, "They just want to know what you want to build and check to see if it meets code and is safe." About dropped over.

It's about what you expect and want. Small steps get you there.
 
Fred said:
1. Had one designer that drew all kinds of footings that could be used on two seperate sheets and included them until I finally got it across to him that we only needed what was happening on that job. That took years.
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Inspectors and builders are on the same page here, the engineers are the worst offenders, we hate those copied and pasted details, if you think it takes time in plan check, you ought to see the time it takes us estimating and in the field. The excuse I used to get was that the customers like it because it saves them money, just the other day I challenged a structural engineer on it where I was paying his bill, his excuse was: "They're there in case there is a change and you need them."

You would be doing all of us a favor if you rejected outright all submittals containing non-applicable details, and leaving them in with a diagonal line through them doesn't count either (even if it's a red line).
 
Fred -

What I run into here is I will have a contractor mosey into my office, pull out a sheet of notebook paper, and proceed to do some sketches of a proposed project. They then want to know what a permit would cost. Huh? What about the truss calcs, framing details, footing details, etc etc. etc.?

I have seen progress in the past dozen years or so but, it is still a challenge with some folks. ;)

Sue, where the west still lives..................:cowboy
 
Oh .. get some kind of reinspection fee written in... or they will take advantage of you!

apply it uniformly (ok.. the kick plates were missing for the close in.. it's fixed for the insulation.. may be no additional fee).

DO NOT get into the habit of failing inspections to collect a reinspection fee.

Tighten up your standards.. publish them and ENFORCE them...
 
Sue -

Tell the contractor that it will be more than $200 and less than $100,000 for the permit. Once you get the full set of accurate drawings, they get the full accurate permit quote!
 
peach said:
Oh .. get some kind of reinspection fee written in... or they will take advantage of you!apply it uniformly (ok.. the kick plates were missing for the close in.. it's fixed for the insulation.. may be no additional fee).

DO NOT get into the habit of failing inspections to collect a reinspection fee.

Tighten up your standards.. publish them and ENFORCE them...
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Peach -

This is not a revenue generator by any means!

Interesting postscript, this fee was in the 2004 fee schedule - $30 instead of $50, so, I guess everybody missed it?

Sue, where the west still lives.................
 
MtnArch said:
Sue -Tell the contractor that it will be more than $200 and less than $100,000 for the permit. Once you get the full set of accurate drawings, they get the full accurate permit quote!
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Alan -

That's about the reply that they get from me now. It has cured most of them.

Sue, where the west still lives.............
 
We do use reinspect fees occaisionally, but it has to be really over the top to trigger them.......like last week when one of my inspectors went out for the THIRD time and had to AGAIN fail a gas pipe air test for failing to hold pressure. Contractor couldn't understand why he was getting the reinspect fee........sheesh.

And it is written into our fee schedule as ordinance.
 
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