District of Squamish plans to increase building permit fees it charges for development.
The council will discuss the issue at a special meeting of the council today.
The fees increase, district says, is to recover costs associated with the provision of Community Planning services and increase capacity of the building permits function in future year.
Here are the planned fees increases:
Increase Plan Processing Fee from $90 to $200 for all applications.
Increase Plan Processing Fee from $90 to $500 for applications with development value above $100,000.
Increase Plan Processing Fee from $90 to $3,000 for applications with development value above $1 Million.
Increase Building Permit Extension/Renewal Fee from $50 to $500 for applications with development value above $100,000.
Increase Building Permit Extension/Renewal Fee from $50 to $1,000 for applications with development value above $1 Million.
Remove Partial Permit Fee.
Increase Moving Permit from $100 per building to $200 per building.
Increase Building Permit Fees from $9 per $1,000 of development value to $11 per $1,000.
This would increase the fees for some building permit applications by up to 22%.
However, district is also proposing reduction in some fees. District proposes to reduce building permit fees for tenant improvements from $9 per $1,000 to $7 per $1,000.
“Depending on the level of improvements, this would reduce building permit fees for commercial, industrial, institutional tenants (not base building costs usually borne by developers) by up to 20%,” district says.
District also plans to reduce Building Permit Fees for developments proposing to both exceed District’s Step Code requirements and utilize 100% renewable energy sources from $9 per $1,000 to $6 per $1,000.
This, the district says, would reduce building permit fees for qualified developments by up to 35%.
District also plans to exempt Building Permit Fees for publicly funded affordable housing developments and exempt Building Permit Fees for District Facilities when funded by the district.
District also plans to reduce licensing fees for Cannabis Retail from $5,000 to $1,000 after the first year of operation.
District also plans to increase OCP amendment fee for Sub Area Plan applications from $22,000 to $30,000, remove discounts for OCP amendment, remove discount for residential rezoning and development permits above 3 units.
District also plans to remove discount for subdivisions above 50 lots, and increase minimum fee for subdivision applications from $1,000 to $3,000, exempt development fees for publicly funded affordable housing developments and exempt development fees for District Facilities when funded by the District.
The current fee does not cover staff resources required to process Sub Area Plan applications.
