Planners Recommend Higher Filing Fees For Subdivisions, Mobile Home Parks
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Filing fees for zoning, subdivision and mobile home parks permits could be shooting up later this year.
Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission approved Wednesday to recommend to the county commissioners that an amendment to the county ordinance on the filing fees be approved.
Plan Director Dan Richard told the board, “In working with the county council, and actually talking to the commissioners, too, I’m trying to cover ourselves on our advertising costs. We spend a lot of money on publication of legal notices.”
The original attempt was to just recover through the fee schedule the Plan Commission’s costs for advertising.
“We do not cover through the fees what we charge for our legal ad because of that. So we’re attempting, through our hearings, to try and recover some of our costs we have,” Richard said.
Assistant Planner Matt Sandy said the issue has been discussed pretty extensively, beginning with the filing fees.
The commission has a number of different filing fees through its various ordinances. The last time it reviewed its fees was in 2000, Sandy said.
“In looking at those, we looked at what our filing fees are, what the costs of the ads have been, and, I’m going to say based off some discussion we had here, trying to build in a little bit of cushion so we’re not back every year trying to cover our new fees,” Sandy said.
Under improvement location permits, a filing fee for a permit for residential accessory structures, residential additions and agricultural accessory structures would be $25. Single-family and multi-family residences would be $50. Permit filing fees for a building 2,500 square feet or less would also be $50, but one for a larger structure would be $75.
If construction begins or a building is occupied before a permit is granted, the filing fees would be $125 for accessory structures; $250 for a single-family residence; $250 plus $5 per square foot for a multi-family residence (not to exceed $1,000); and $500 for buildings up to 5,000 square feet. Over 5,000 square feet, the cost is $500 plus $10 per each 10 square feet over 5,000 square feet (not to exceed $1,000).
Sign permit filing fees for signs with a surface area of more than 2 square feet is $25. If the sign is erected prior to permit approval, the permit filing fee is $50 under the ordinance change.
Petition filing fees will increase from $75 to $150 for variance and exception petitions; and $75 to $300 for appeals of plan director determination, zoning ordinance amendment and development plan review.
Filing fees for permits for preliminary plats would increase from $75 to $150 for minor subdivisions of one to three lots; and from $150 to $350 for major subdivisions with four or more lots.
The last change would affect filing fees for mobile homes park.
“I can’t tell you the last time we’ve approved a new mobile home park in the county, but if we did, there’s a section in our ordinance that addresses that,” Sandy said.
The prior fee was $10 plus 25 cents for each mobile home space in the proposed park with a minimum charge of $15 to cover the cost of checking and verifying the proposed park plat.
The new proposed cost for filing fees would be $150 plus $100 for each mobile home space to be established within the park.
The hearing on the proposed ordinance amendments was advertised and Wednesday’s meeting was a public hearing on it. Sandy said the office did not receive any comment on them.
Bob Conley, county commissioners’ representative on the plan commission, said he knows the legal notification is quite extensive. He asked if there was a way to cut down on the legal notifications cost.
Richard and Sandy said state statue requires publication of legal notices in a certain way a certain number of times. They have to published in a local printed newspaper, which Sandy said was the Times-Union.
Larry Coplen, plan commission member, said the new permit fees were “justifiable.”
County council’s representative to the commission, Jon Garber, asked if there was no public input received on the permit fee hike. Sandy said there was none.
“The key in my mind is, we asked them to do this and they’ve done it,” Conley said, making a motion to accept the recommendation.
After a second to the motion was provided, county surveyor and plan commission member Mike Kissinger expressed his reservation about the improvement location permit filing fees. He said the only cost to the county for those was the staff writing the permits. Sandy said that was correct.
Kissinger was the only board member who didn’t vote to recommend the ordinance amendment be approved.
After the vote was taken, Sandy said the new permit filing fees would go into effect later this year, possibly in August or Sept. 1, if approved by the county commissioners.
