DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — A suburban Detroit community has increased its fee for extending the time spent building a residential home beyond 12 months, and officials with the Home Builders Association of Michigan worry that other communities could follow with similar fee changes.
A recent 4-1 Dearborn City Council vote on the issue was approved amid concerns about builders taking too long to construct homes, the Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/11W54Le ). The fee to extend construction now is $1,000 per additional month; previously it was $25.
Recommended Stories
According to supporters, the higher fee is necessary to help maintain neighborhoods. According to Dearborn, the increased cost is warranted because the money is needed to deal with monitoring, code enforcement, inspections and city staff time.
Councilman Robert Abraham said it could be waived in some cases.
“Neighborhoods have been negatively impacted for a stretch of time that far surpasses construction timelines,” Abraham said at the meeting. “This ordinance is simply to rein in that timeline and hold the property owners and the contractors accountable to a reasonable timeline.”
Opponents said the fee is unreasonable and could violate state law, in part because it seeks to collect fees that go beyond the recovering costs of a specific activity and allows the council to waive it. They’re worried about cities trying to raise money for other departments by increasing building department fees.
“Building-department fees are limited to recovering the costs of running the department,” said Lee Schwartz, executive vice president for government relations with the Home Builders Association of Michigan. “They can’t be used to raise money. … They can’t be used in a punitive manner.
In 2010, the Home Builders Association and two other building associations filed a lawsuit against the city of Troy, accusing the city of having excessive fees for building permits and using that money for other departments. Troy is contesting the lawsuit.
___
Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com
