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Property Owners May Face Fees
For Land Use Change Requests
Last Updated: December 9, 2011
Whether to charge property owners requesting land use changes was the main discussion topic for the Board as it considered implementing a preliminary development agreement. But it was the question of whether that fee would be made a resolution or part of the land use ordinance that delayed at decision at the December 5 Board meeting.
The primary difference being that if it attaches to the ordinance it will cost much more than it would to make it a resolution. The answer to which way to go lies with Town Attorney Connie Anderson who Clerk Kim Banigan agreed to check with and report to the Board at its January 22 meeting.
In addition to a $250 fee that was unofficially agreed to at the meeting, the Board also discussed charging fees to cover payments for planning, print and mailing costs—expenses that were paid by the Town in past years.
What the Board is leaning toward is a plan where a property owner who wants to make a change that goes against the Town’s comprehensive land use plan must present their proposal to the Plan Commission during its annual open review time from February 15 to March 15. If the Plan Commission and subsequently the Town Board agree to the change, the applicant would then need to pay the $250 fee and the additional charges that would come from the planning print, mailing and other expenses. These usually range somewhere from $6,000 to $10,000, said Banigan. But one concern that remained was that even if the Town agreed to the changes and after the applicant paid all the fees, the change could still be denied at the county level leaving the landowner out the money with nothing to show for it.
The Board decided during its 2012 budget negotiations that the preliminary development agreement was needed to manage the budget. The decision was spurred by fewer dollars coming from state shared revenue and increasing budget constraints.
While the agreement as it stands seemed to garner the favor of the Board, it came with plenty of discussion—most of it revolving around how the fee would work.
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| Mike Kindschi |
The Board spent about 45 minutes discussing mechanics of the proposed agreement, including its cost structure, procedure and use issues. They waded through gray area trying to determine where the benefit to the individual property owner would end and where the Town benefit begins, the purpose being to determine which party truly benefited and therefore should pay.
“If somebody comes to the plan commission with an idea as to a change to the land use plan at what point does it become the property of the Town seeing that change through,” said Chairman Kris Hampton, posing a question of where does the benefit to the Town as a whole exceed the individual. “If we accept that idea; if the Town owns it then why is someone else paying for it?”
Supervisor Mike Kindschi added to that discussion, questioning what was a Town benefit and how it could be measured. “What is a financial benefit to the Town," he asked. “A subdivision of six lots? Is that a financial benefit to the Town?” Kindschi said he didn’t see these decisions being made on a case-by case-basis. “You have to have something hard and fast in black and white. I don’t think that would be fair to put on the committee to decide whether it’s to the benefit of the Town or not.”
Drilling down further into the fee discussion, Kindschi asked why the Town would pay for something that possibly would benefit a single landowner. “Why would we expect taxpayers to pick up the bill for one person’s benefit,” he asked. One idea he suggested early on in the meeting was to allow several property owners' requests to come in before making changes. That way they could be done all at once and the fees for updating the plan could be divvied among multiple individuals.
There was also talk of holding requests for consideration until the point every five years when the Town master plan is updated. This seemed unnecessary to Supervisor Mike Fonger who said, “If somebody has an idea and they think it’s good enough and it’s to benefit them they’re going to pay a fee, and there is no doubt about that.”
Introducing a fee-for-service plan brought a question from Banigan asking whether this might keep some individuals from presenting good proposal that might benefit the Town. “I don’t think you should be discouraging people from coming in to make suggestions to your land use plan because you might have someone out there who has a really good idea that the plan commission hasn’t considered and it would benefit but they’re not going to come in.”
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