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Bonita building fee price hike remains a mystery
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The 800-pound gorilla in Bonita Springs City Hall on Wednesday remained in the corner.
City officials held a special meeting with members of the area building industry to discuss potential improvements to its brand new community development department, but Mayor Ben Nelson and the community development staff said the new fees for applications and permits would not be discussed.
“I’m not quite sure what the purpose of the meeting was if we weren’t talking about the fees,” said Marc Russ, owner of Russ Construction. “We knew ahead of time we wouldn’t be talking about the fees, but there’s not that much else to talk about.”
Bonita Springs broke off its relationship with Lee County to start a separate community development department operated by private contractor CH2M Hill. The new department opened June 30 and fielded 82 applications in the first week.
“There has been a significant amount of people coming in,” said Beverly Tew, community development director. “It’s more than I was anticipating.”
While the new department was started to give applicants more Bonita-specific service and better customer service, the major controversy has been how the fees will change between Lee County and CH2M Hill.
The private company has proposed quadrupling the fees in order to make the community development department self-sufficient without a need for money from the city’s general fund. After the building industry balked at that proposal, CH2M Hill has been working to come up with a more acceptable fee schedule.
The Bonita Springs City Council will make the final decision on the fees. The city will have a workshop on July 31 to specifically discuss that one issue.
“We are the guinea pig right now, and the eyes of the surrounding communities are on us for what we are going to do with this fee schedule,” Councilwoman Janet Martin said.
The purpose of Wednesday workshop with the building industry was to discuss any other issues that came up during the first week and a half since the department opened for business.
The issues were mostly procedural as the building industry members in attendance wanted to know about the transition with applications filed in Lee County, how certain cases will be handled and improving the service window at the new office.
Russ asked what was going to be expected of the applicants as they go through the approval process. He didn’t want to waste precious time by not knowing what he will be required to do.
“We just want to know ahead of time what the procedures will be,” he said. “Time is money.”
Those in attendance were encouraged to communicate openly with the city and CH2M Hill about what can be done to ease the transition from Lee County.
“It is going to be a really great experience once we work through the fee schedule,” said Barbara Barnes-Buchanan, assistant city manager.
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"The private company has proposed quadrupling the fees..."
Yeah, that's the answer folks...
#1 Posted by Jadip811 on July 9, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, everybody says we need to control growth!
This ought to do it.
;-)
#2 Posted by Optipess on July 10, 2008 at 7:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Construction in the toilet, so you raise fees? Maybe these Bozos could get a job at Cape Canaveral!
#3 Posted by cousinjed on July 10, 2008 at 8:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
taxpayers will burden the bail out in the long run when this project goes "belly up" and in the mean time city officials will still get to keep their "kick backs" from CH2M
#4 Posted by Chenzo on July 10, 2008 at 8:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The real mysteries:
Why were Lee County permit fees charged contractors the same for 15 years?
Why did Bonita Springs City manager/council subsidize w/property taxapyer dollars Lee County Building Department $400,000 in years 03,04,05,,,then increase to $700,000 in 06, $1,100.000 in 07 and commit to $1,600,000 thru fiscal 08?
#5 Posted by BonitaSprings1 on July 10, 2008 at 9:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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