SANTA PAULA : City Rejects Plea to Waive Building Fees

The Santa Paula City Council rejected a request Monday to waive all city fees and reviews of plans for smaller building projects, setting the stage for a possible petition drive by the business leaders who proposed the waiver.

Despite voicing sympathy for merchants who are frustrated by what they see as excessive red tape, the council rejected the proposal to waive all fees on projects where the cost of materials is less than $2,500.

“The business people who supported this are obviously upset and frustrated, but I don’t believe the city is responsible for their misfortune,” Mayor Margaret A. Ely said before the vote.

Roger Harvey, an insurance broker who pushed the idea of a fee waiver before the council for several months, promised the council that he would wait six months before pursuing a citizens initiative as he had promised before.

“Every businessman, contractor and homeowner I’ve talked to about this wants to go forward with it as an initiative,” Harvey said before the vote, referring to protests over alleged over-regulation by the city. “Whether the city wants it or not, the planning department and building department are under siege in this town.”

But Harvey agreed to hold off for six months to give the city time to adopt recommendations made by a citizens committee for trimming red tape at City Hall.

Before the council voted to receive a staff report opposing the request, City Administrator Arnold Dowdy said the city would lose an estimated $40,000 in fees under the proposal and lose the ability to correct a project’s mistakes before it is built.

About 40% of all construction and remodeling projects in the city would have qualified for an exemption from plan reviews and fees under the proposal, which would also require free inspections of eligible projects when they are complete.

Building fees are set at 1.26% of a project’s cost, with the rate going up for larger projects that require more oversight, said Jim Scheidt, a Santa Paula building inspector. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing fees are determined according to a complex set of variables, with a minimum fee of $20, Scheidt said.