Fruitland board reviews building plan issue
By Jessica Keller
Argus Observer
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 10:49 AM PDT
Fruitland — The Fruitland City Council readdressed the issue of potential building plan review and fire life & safety review fees at Monday’s regular City Council meeting, but after more questions were raised, the matter was postponed again pending more information from Building Official Dwayne Holloway. At the previous City Council meeting, the council asked Holloway to provide some comparisons of what other cities were charging for building plan and fire life safety reviews and to give a break down of what each service would entail compared with what builders receive now. According to an informational report provided by Holloway, Caldwell charges a commercial plan review fee of 65 percent of the building permit, 20 percent of the building permit fee for commercial fire plan review and 20 percent for a residential plan review. Nampa also charges 65 percent of its building permit fee for a plan review and 20 percent of a building permit fee for a fire life safety review. He also provided comparisons for Emmett, Weiser, Payette and Ontario.
Holloway, when initially presenting the idea to the council, recommended the city charge a plan review fee based on 65 percent of the building permit fee schedule and 40 percent of the building permit fee schedule for fire life safety, which is what Ontario charges. He said, however, those percentages were just provided as examples, and could be changed at the council’s discretion.
After reviewing the information Monday, however, council members were curious as to what the building permit fee base scale was for the other cities Holloway listed in his comparisons.
Holloway told the council the city’s building permit fee scale, which is based on the value of a project, has not changed since it was approved in October of 1999. Since then the cost of building materials has increased and raised the values of the projects. Holloway said he did not know what the other cities’ base permit fee schedules were, but he could get that information, which Mayor Tom Limbaugh said it would be nice to know. Councilman Keith Schuller agreed.
“I’d sure feel better about seeing that before deciding anything,” Schuller said.
Limbaugh suggested, if Fruitland’s building permit base schedule is significantly lower than other cities’, it might be beneficial for the city to review its building permit schedule anyway. Councilman Ken Bishop asked Holloway how much additional time it would take to perform each of the reviews. He then requested Holloway provide some data as to the time, labor and material costs to inspect current projects. Whereas Limbaugh and Schuller were interested in what the building permit fees were for the other cities, Bishop said he was more concerned with how much additional time it would take Holloway and/or an assistant, if hired, to complete the reviews based on current time spent and cost accrued inspecting buildings. Bishop said the city’s budgeted revenues for the building department, $90,000, aren’t too far from the projected expenditures of $115,000.
“So our fees aren’t very far off what’s needed to operate the department,” he said. If the council had some way to extrapolate out proposed hours for the additional work on top of current hours and costs, perhaps members could determine how much more money is necessary to do the additional work and come up with building plan review and fire life safety fees reflecting that, Bishop said.
Also during the meeting, the City Council listened to a proposal from Snake River Transit Advisory Committee members regarding a proposed bus transit system in the area. The council agreed to look into the matter when devising its budget for the 2008 through 2009 fiscal year. The council also discussed crosswalk line painting during the meeting. Councilman Bud Reifsnyder asked Public Works Supervisor Jerry Campbell when the city was scheduled to have the crosswalks repainted because some of the current lines are nearly gone, specifically a crosswalk on Southwest Third Street near the community center across from the park. Reifsnyder said the matter was brought to his attention by a couple of residents, who voiced concern for children’s and pedestrians’ safety, especially as more activities are taking place downtown, and because of the number of cars on the street each day. Campbell told the council, the firm hired to repaint the lines throughout the whole town was set to begin within the next few weeks. He added, because of the additional sanding the city had to do during the winter from the snow, the crosswalk lines were very hard to see.
