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Engineering office links 2024 revenue surge to GAF, Fox Ridge development
Summary
City engineering staff told commissioners that higher building permit and engineering service fees in 2024 — including $389,000 in permit fees from GAF and about $491,000 in engineering service fees — resulted from large private developments and increased housing starts.
The Newton City Commission heard from engineering staff about how private development drove a substantial increase in building-permit and engineering-fee revenue in 2024.
Miss Anne, speaking for the engineering office, said building permit values and resulting permit-fee revenue spiked in 2024 because of large projects including the GAF facility and the Fox Ridge housing development. She said total building-permit fees for 2024 were about $867,000, and that GAF’s portion of that total was $389,000.
Anne explained engineering service fees are assessed as percentages of final construction cost for public infrastructure work (streets, water, sewer, storm drainage) and noted those fees had not been changed since February 2006. She said engineering-services revenue for 2024 totaled about $491,000 for public-infrastructure plan review and inspection work; that figure reflected heavy review and inspection workloads on projects such as library construction and other capital projects.
She added that the in-house value of the city staff’s capital project oversight — work that avoided consultant costs — was about $406,000 in 2024, an efficiency gain the engineering office tracks as cost savings to the community.
Anne described how fees are structured: plan-review percentages (for example, plan review for a street at 3% of final construction cost) and construction inspection percentages (7% for street inspection were cited), with fees remitted to the general fund. She said staffing limitations have reduced in-house design and staking services and increased reliance on developers and consultants for some tasks.
Anne said residential starts for 2024 included 19 new units with 93% of those in the Fox Ridge project; as of Feb. 19, 2025, there were nine housing starts in the year to date and five plats under review. She cautioned staff cannot assume high development-year revenues recur annually and noted budgeting typically assumes conservative averages for fee income.
No formal action was required on the item; the presentation was to inform the commission as it prepares the 2025 budget.
