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Planning board discusses raising public‑notice fee; consensus to recommend $150
Summary
Board members discussed changes to the planning and zoning fee schedules to cover newspaper public‑notice costs and abutter notices. Members expressed preliminary consensus to recommend a $150 public‑notice fee and a $15 abutter‑notification fee and asked staff to present numbers next month.
On July 17 the Town of Loudon Planning Board reviewed the planning‑board fee schedule and discussed options for aligning public‑notice costs with actual newspaper and certified‑mail expenses. Members noted that the town currently absorbs a portion of the public‑notice newspaper expense (currently commonly $175–$200 depending on ad length) and that zoning notices have a lower application fee, which can leave the town absorbing costs when few applications are processed in a month.
Board members discussed alternatives including raising the planning‑board public‑notice fee to $150 and setting an abutter‑notice postage fee of $15 to offset certified‑mail costs (the planning department currently spends about $8.86 per certified notice using existing equipment but postal increases mean that cost may rise). Members asked planning staff to pull 12 months of recent public‑notice and certified‑mail billing so the board can evaluate whether a flat $150 public‑notice fee would be sufficient and to consider parity with the zoning board’s fee schedule.
No final fee change was adopted July 17; members expressed a preliminary consensus to present a $150 public notice fee to the zoning board for consideration and asked staff to return with a brief fiscal comparison at the next meeting.
