Dunn County committee adopts updated land-use fee schedule and formalizes register-of-deeds online-access fees

The Dunn County Planning, Resource and Development Committee voted on Oct. 15 to approve two measures affecting local fees and online document access.

First, the committee approved an ordinance repealing and recreating register-of-deeds language to formalize current online-access contracts and fees. Staff told the committee the rewrite replaces an outdated program that ceased in 2018 and clarifies that the register of deeds may enter online-access contracts and set associated user fees through the annual budget process. Staff said the county’s software vendor has proposed a 15% increase to licensing fees; the office has collected about $42,000 in remote-access and online-access revenues through September and reported paying roughly $15,000 in related license fees so far this year.

Second, the committee adopted an updated county land-use division fee schedule. Zoning Administrator Tammy presented reforms and new or adjusted charges intended to align fees with staff time and state limits. Highlights of the proposed schedule included:

- Adjusting building-permit thresholds (proposed change from 100 sq. ft. to 200 sq. ft. for small accessory structures) and modifying fees for additions and principal commercial/industrial structures. - New or increased fees for temporary mobile recreational-vehicle (RV) permits (proposed annual permit), certain shoreland and floodplain activities, water-related utilities in shoreland areas, vegetative buffer mitigation agreements and public-utility installations. - Increasing the fee for tower collocations and modifications (to $500) and proposing higher fees for new tower applications (staff proposed up to $1,500 under county practice; statute allows up to $3,000). - Sanitary-permit fees adjusted to reflect state shares and county retention; draft shown to the committee included a proposed increase in holding-tank fees and other administrative adjustments.

Tammy said the intent of many changes is to recover staff costs for reviews and inspections and to encourage permit applicants to come in before work begins. She described some reduced fees for small accessory structures and said staff would follow up with zoning-ordinance amendments to match thresholds proposed in the fee schedule.

How the committee voted

The PRD Committee moved both items forward in recorded motions and voice votes at the meeting; each passed and will be transmitted to the executive committee and then to the full county board for final action. The committee took public questions during the presentations and asked staff to refine the spreadsheet-format resolution for clarity before it proceeds through the county process.

Why it matters

County staff said the register-of-deeds changes formalize an existing practice of selling timed access subscriptions to title companies, appraisers and lenders and will give the office a clearer mechanism to adjust fees if vendor licensing costs rise. The land-use fee schedule updates reallocate more of certain permit costs to users rather than the general fund, with staff projecting usage-based revenue largely covering associated software and maintenance costs over time.

Ending

Staff will revise the resolution language and return materials with clearer formatting as the items move to the executive committee. No additional county budget appropriation was approved at the Oct. 15 meeting; staff noted many fee lines are intended to cover actual costs for permit review, hosting and software maintenance.