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Planning commission gives favorable recommendation to updated planning and building fee schedule
Summary
The commission voted 8-0 to send a favorable recommendation to the Common Council on a draft ordinance updating Greenwood’s planning and building fee schedule; staff said increases aim to recover staff time and align fees with peer cities.
The Greenwood Advisory Planning Commission on Feb. 10 voted unanimously to give a favorable recommendation to a draft ordinance (No. 1339) that updates the city’s planning and building fee schedule and administrative fee table. The recommendation moves the draft ordinance to the Common Council for final action.
Planning staff said the city’s last comprehensive fee update was in 2013 and that a number of fees have not been adjusted since then. Omar Nelson summarized key changes and the rationale: to better align fees with staff time required to review plans and inspect permitted work, to reduce the degree to which taxpayers subsidize private development, and to bring selected fees into line with comparable neighboring communities.
Nelson highlighted several explicit changes discussed at the hearing: the per-lot fee for site development plan primary class would increase from $5 to $50 (affecting large residential and commercial subdivisions), a dimensional variance filing for single-family property is identified in staff materials as $150, and the draft would add a $50 fee for a standardized zone-verification letter typically requested by lenders. Staff also said the draft introduces a fee for waiver requests (the draft did not establish a single, fixed waiver amount at the hearing), and that some small-fee reductions or consolidations are included for low-impact, single-lot work.
Commissioners and staff discussed the intent that fees reflect staff time and are not intended as revenue-generating taxes. Staff said the building division analyzed work orders, plan-review time and inspection workload to inform proposed amounts. Nelson also offered to supply comparative fee tables for neighboring jurisdictions on request.
A commissioner moved that the commission provide a favorable recommendation to the Common Council on the fee-schedule ordinance; the motion was seconded and passed on an 8-0 roll call. The commission’s action is advisory; the Common Council will set final fees and ordinance language.
