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Town commission reduces some building permit fees
By HARLAN WEIKLE
| Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007 |
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BELLEAIR – The cost of the restoration of the Belleview Biltmore, which has been estimated by owners Legg Mason Real Estate Investors to be in the neighborhood of $100 million, makes it one of the largest private building projects in the county and certainly the largest in Belleair.
On Nov. 7, town officials made the unusual move of adjusting down the town’s proposed building permit fees to come in line with other municipalities in the county.
Reading from a list of local municipal building fee structures, Town Manager Micah Maxwell enumerated the range of fees, which would apply to similar projects the size of the Biltmore: Clearwater, Tarpon Springs, Oldsmar and Belleair Beach would charge $300,000 to $350,000 in permitting and building inspection fees, Pinellas Park just over $200,000 and Largo and St. Petersburg $1.5 million and $2.9 million respectively.
The decision by the Town Commission was to bench their previous plan to hike fees from a simple 1 percent to 2 percent of total project valuation, and replace it with what Maxwell called a “sliding scale.”
For the first $1 million of project value, the permit and inspection fees would be set at a flat 2 percent or $20,000. Then for each $1,000 of value the town would collect $3.30, which for the Biltmore owners results in an estimated fee of approximately $350,000 rather than the nearly $2 million they had been facing.
The new sliding fee structure, “would fit in with the rest of these $100 million projects,” Maxwell said, “Pretty much the middle of the other projects.”
In discussions with town officials and the representatives of LMREI, the formula developed eases the burden of the cost of permitting very large value projects such as the Biltmore, yet keeps in place a fee structure. According to town officials, that will cover the cost requirements of permitting and inspecting, including, in the case of the Biltmore, site plans review and the cost of hiring historic preservation experts.
At the same time, the fee structure provides for a simple $25 fee for small projects up to $1,000.
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Article published on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007
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