Fees on Owner-Builder
Thirty-five years ago as an owner-builder, I constructed my home in La Puente. It was of modest size and adequate for raising our family. Now that our children are on their own, we decided, now was a good time to add on. Got my plans and applied for a permit as an owner-builder.
In order to get a permit, aside from the regular fees, was a developer fee imposed by the Whittier School District of $1.50 per foot for new construction.
My question: Why should this burden apply to a long-term resident who has paid the school taxes before, during and after my children have left the system? Eighteen hundred dollars tacked on just about puts me in limbo for this project. What was the intent of the developer fee legislation? Was it to help the school districts where developers created a need for new schools or also to penalize long-term residents improving their property, with no intention of burdening the schools with new students?
As a retiree I was looking forward to this project, but apparently government seems to destroy initiative, miss out on new taxes and lose generated sales taxes.
W.J. KENDALL
La Puente
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