I was in a small town today to get a building permit for a building in a small apartment complex. They wanted $0.50 per s.f. for the building permit -- $4,000. Ouch. Typically it is $700 or $800 in other communties.
It got me thinking about what do other people see as permit fees and are they calculated on s.f. or $$$.
This was upstate NY (very far upstate).
If by very far upstate NY you are referring to Western New York, then I feel your pain. Government in this area badly needs another "Boston Tea Party" to remind them how outrageous their taxation policies have become.
Smarty
WOW that's outrageous. Around here , NE OH between akron and canton the permit amount is based on area of all floors. Just had a roof put on which required a buildng permit but the roofer included that in the costs and didn't disclose it to me since I was getting the discount job in the first place.
"Meat Plow" wrote
What city charges for sq. ft area? For putting up a new building, yes, and there are several different permits required, and the prices vary by sq. ft. area.
For a roof, no. I know for a fact, Akron does not require a permit for a roof, unless you are replacing wood. Then the price is $35. Uniontown/Green/Hartville, does not require a permit for a roof. Canton's fee is $50.
I've worked all those cities and every city up to Cleveland. Never has any city based a roof permit on the area of all floors.
It's a selection on the permit that I looked up. I didn't see the actual permit. Now what?
A lot of places use the permit process to slow down growth and pay for the impact of new residents.
We built a new home in 2006. The cost of the building permit for the whole smash was (are you ready for this?) $10.00. No shit............TEN U.S. Dollars. This was in Rural Nebraska. Each community sets their own fee. In our village, it's 10 bucks, weather it's a deck, shed, or house. It does not matter what you're building. I agree that building permit costs are out of control in most areas. The Gov is out of control.
Pat,
I don't know how they calculated it, but when we built our house back in
2003/2004, it cost $340 to "apply" for the permit, and then another $690 when we picked up the approved permit. We're in Clark County, Washington state, and our house is 1456 square feet.However, we already lived in a mobile on the property, so we didn't have to pay the "impact" fee. I get the feeling that's the part that hurts the most, because another lady was getting a permit for her house when I was there, and her impact fee was $20,000! Thankfully, we moved to our property before they implemented the impact fees... :)
Anthony
When I built my house in 2001 the fees were as follows in central California. 3500 sqf 2 story.
School impact fee: 13,500 Fire impact fee Police impact fee Library impact fee seemingly endless list of fees just to get to the actual permit fees.
Total, out the door before I could drive a single nail
$35,000
That was a painful check to write.
--Ben
Wow! Do they have the nerve to charge that outrageous "school impact fee" even if you don't have kids, or do they assume "everyone" breeds? I thought the obscene TAXES I pay were supposed to cover my "impact" on the community. Yeah, like my $5,000/year school taxes when I never had kids and never will.
11 years of my taxes are the original purchase price of my house, so at 22 years here, I've paid for it 3 times now, and I'm not counting mortgage interest! $35,000 for a permit???!!! Another reason to never live in CA.
Wow. The good news is, if there is any good news, that Impact Fees are illegal in New York. They've ruled them out because it is looked at as a "welcome neighbor tax". It's one of those "equal protection" things.
In this area, you could get a house for the cost of your impact fee.
There are 50 listings for homes between $30,000 and $40,000 including this charmer:
They sure do have the nerve to charge that fee wheter or not you even have children that will impact the school. One of the reasone the fees were so high is the land had never been built on before, if there had ever been another structure I would not have had to pay any of the impact fees.
--Ben
That looked damned good for the money. And it says it is easy to get to from Cuba.
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