Committee moves housing inspection fee ordinance to March after months of debate; council also forwards cost‑recovery directive

The Ithaca City Common Council Committee of the Whole on Feb. 19 advanced an ordinance updating the city’s housing inspection fee schedule to the March 5 voting meeting and passed a companion resolution directing staff to pursue a cost‑recovery approach for residential inspection fees.

City Manager Deb told the committee the change is primarily driven by a planned migration of permitting to the OpenGov online platform and by longstanding inefficiencies in the current system. “The impetus for bringing this to you in the first place was not actually the amount of the fee. It was a way for us to ensure that all of the permits in the building division were being collected in the same fashion,” Deb said, explaining staff’s urgency to complete the OpenGov rollout.

The nut graf: Council spent more than an hour debating whether to adopt staff’s recommended fee schedule now — which officials said would allow the building division to migrate away from an older FileMaker Pro system — or to delay adoption while a consultant produces a comprehensive fee‑study to set a long‑term cost‑recovery policy. The committee voted 7–2 to send the ordinance with staff’s updated fee schedule to the March 5 voting agenda. Separately, a resolution from Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio instructing staff to implement a cost‑recovery model and to review the schedule was approved in committee on a 5–4 vote and will be placed on the March 5 voting agenda for final action.

What staff said Rob Feldewalt, identified in the packet as the author of the planning/building memo, explained technical constraints: the city’s housing inspection workflow is still processed in an older FileMaker Pro system and staff spend significant time chasing documentation and collecting fees after inspections. “Housing inspectors spend an inordinate amount of time and energy after the inspection trying to obtain certifications and compliance documents from the applicant,” Rob said in explaining the operational burden.

Planning and building staff emphasized that once the fee schedule is entered into OpenGov, staff can change fees quickly; Rob told council an updated schedule can be implemented in OpenGov and be effective the next business day. Staff also repeatedly recommended a citywide fee study to set a data‑driven cost‑recovery policy across departments, saying a study would provide standardized methods to calculate direct and indirect costs and to assign cost‑recovery targets by type of fee.

Council discussion Alderperson Clyde Letterman, who moved the ordinance language onto the floor so the committee could debate item 3.1, said he intended to protect the council’s ability to amend the schedule during debate. “Let’s hear the presentation. Let’s talk about this before we have a resolution that we vote on that has to do with an amendment,” Letterman said.

Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio, who later introduced the separate cost‑recovery resolution, argued the council ought to place a policy directive on the record now to push fees closer to cost recovery. Fabrizio read a resolution that stated, in part, that the Common Council “recognizes the significant cost required to provide inspection services and the need for cost recovery in this area of operations.” She told colleagues the motion would not bind future changes and would allow staff to continue work with OpenGov while the city develops a comprehensive fee policy.

Other council members pressed staff for more detail on the basis for the fee numbers. Alderperson Phoebe (Q) ran staff figures in the meeting and told colleagues that under some simple assumptions the new schedule could be lower than what the older room‑based fee model produced for large buildings; staff and other council members disputed that characterization and pointed to differing historical rate multipliers for very large buildings. “Even if you went to the low side and said a unit is just 1 bedroom… the numbers still come out lower than what we are being proposed,” Q said. Staff responded that the prior system contained an economy‑of‑scale price break for large buildings that reduced per‑room charges historically.

Votes and next steps - Ordinance (updated housing inspection fee schedule): motion to send the ordinance with the updated fee schedule to the March 5 voting meeting — passed in committee 7 yes, 2 no. The ordinance will return to the council for a final vote at the March meeting. - Resolution (cost‑recovery policy directive for housing inspections, introduced by Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio): approved in committee 5 yes, 4 no and will be placed on the March 5 voting agenda for a final vote. The resolution directs staff to implement a cost‑recovery model for the building division to the “fullest extent practical” and to review the schedule annually.

Staff stressed the practical benefit of adopting a fee schedule now so the building division can migrate the housing inspection permit to OpenGov. Rob told council the technical migration is the more difficult step and that changing a fee in OpenGov later is straightforward. Several council members supported moving forward now with the understanding a consultant‑led fee study and a working group would follow to refine cost‑recovery policy across city fees.

Ending: What to watch Council will revisit both matters at the March 5 voting meeting: the ordinance with staff’s updated fee schedule and the Fabrizio cost‑recovery resolution. Staff said the OpenGov migration for the building division is targeted for an April implementation if council finalizes fees in March, and that fees in OpenGov can be updated quickly if the council adopts changes later after a consultant study.