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News
County board votes to cut some building fees : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisCounty board votes to cut some building fees
| Officials disagree on $375 charge for site plan reviews
| by Matt Schury
| 2/18/2010
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The Kendall County Board approved changes Tuesday for some of the fees the Planning, Building and Zoning office charges developers.
The changes in the fees were approved by the County Board in a split 7-2 vote, with board members John Purcell and John Shaw casting the two nay votes.
The most controversial change to the ordinance involved establishing a fee of $375 for site plan reviews.
Planning, Building and Zoning Director Jerry Dudgeon said his department reviewed all the existing fees comparing them to communities in surrounding counties
Dudgeon explained that, when the ordinance was created, it was indicated that a fee should be charged for site plan reviews, but no specific fee was established.
Purcell said he was against the increase.
"I think in today's economy it would be nice to try to encourage rather than discourage people from construction," he said.
Purcell added that the county has a full staff in the PBZ department and that the few site plan reviews that will come in "will not make or break the county's budget."
Board member Jeff Wehrli explained that it was a 4-1 vote at the PBZ committee meeting in favor of the changes.
"A $375 fee on a commercial application basically covers our engineering to look at the site development plan and it was felt that the taxpayers of the county shouldn't have to pay for this," Werhli said. "It was always in the books as having a fee it was just never identified," Wehrli said. "There was a hole in our ordinance."
Dudgeon told the board that the fee is based on a single meeting that is held to look at the site design and layout with recommendations. Dudgeon said the $375 is consistent with the fee the county charges developers to come before the Zoning Board of Appeals and covers meeting room space, recording, secretary's fees and staff time.
"I still maintain that the economy is slow and we have a real big staff up there," Purcell said. "I just don't think it is the right time to do it."
He added that to call people together who are mostly employees of the county for an additional meeting or two is not that big a deal.
Elsewhere in the ordinance, zoning text amendments fees were reduced from $1,000 to $500.
The ordinance also reduces the fee the county charges on zoning variances to a base fee of $375 for standard variances on all developments.
"In the past, residential variances were $375 and anything that was a commercial or nonresidential was $750," Dudgeon told the board. "We've recommended making those standard across the board so that all are $375 regardless of whether they are residential or commercial."
Builders requesting a single variance will now be charged $50 for each additional permit, down from the $375 charged previously.
Other changes in the ordinance included reducing special use permit fees slightly to be in line with a graduated schedule of fees consistent with what Will County charges, according to Dudgeon.
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