PUSLINCH – Council here will hold a public meeting on Sept. 16 to discuss 2021 proposed user fees and charges.
“In addition to property tax revenues, municipalities may charge for goods and services, such as recreational rentals, development applications, building permits, etc. through authority which is set and approved by a bylaw adopted by council,” states the Aug. 12 report from director of finance Mary Hassan.
One of the proposed changes is $7.50 for routine disclosure requests, which includes the first 15 minutes of search time.
An additional $7.50 will be charged for each additional 15 minutes of search time for records such as building drawings, septic drawings, surveys, occupancy permits, committee of adjustment or PDAC records, environmental records, site plan records and council records not available in a digital format.
“The purpose of the proposed fee is to recover the costs associated with this service in lieu of addressing routine disclosures through a Freedom of Information (FOI) process,” Hassan states in the report.
Other proposed changes changes include:
– third party cost recovery for the administration, building, planning and development and bylaw departments which recommends a fee of actual costs incurred plus a $100 administration fee to allow the township to retain specialists to review the necessary materials. The proposed fee is to recover costs incurred while performing the service;
– two additional categories for entrance application fees, including: farm at $220 and temporary at $150;
– fire and rescue services fees increasing from $477 per hour per truck to $485 per hour per truck;
– increasing building department fees by CPI inflation of 1.7% because the building department costs were higher than revenues in 2019;
– two-tiered fee structure for compliance letter requests: type one at $77.80 for requests with known building permit history and status and applicable zoning designation and permitted uses; type two at $116.70 (type one fee plus 50%) with known building history and status as well as applicable zoning designation and permitted uses, the status of registered site plans and securities but does not include a title search; and
– increasing the cost of municipal addressing sign and municipal addressing posts from $20.40 to $21.
The public meeting to discuss these proposed changes will be held virtually on Sept. 16 at 7pm. For more information and to register visit puslinch.ca.
