CLEARFIELD -- The fees charged for staff time are being changed to better represent what is actually being done. This includes a new fee to help cover staff time when dealing with business license appeals.
The municipal code outlines the business license appeal process that requires staff to spend time processing the appeal and bring it before the Appeal Authority. There hasn't been a fee previously, and staff felt there should be one in the schedule.
City Manager Adam Lenhard said there has always been a procedure in the ordinance allowing the appeal, but no fee.
"That's a significant amount of paperwork and documentation, plus the staff time to attend the meeting," he said.
That's why they brought the fee before the city council meeting on Tuesday. The $75 fee is similar to other appeal fee values, including the developmental impact appeal fee.
The city council also authorized a fee change for conditional use permits for home occupations. Previously, in-home day cares and pre-schools were charged the same fee as commercial conditional use requests.
However, these types of businesses do not require the same extensive review and same type of distribution, according to acting Community Development Director Valerie Claussen.
Because of this, she proposed that the fee schedule be changed to reduce the fee for those businesses from $350 to $200. That fee is expected to cover costs associated with how much time staff spends reviewing the applications.
The council also authorized allowing concurrent conditional use and site plan application review as well as having one fee when this occurs.
Claussen noted in her staff report that it is extremely common to have these applications processed at the same time because many elements in the conditional use permit are addressed by changes being proposed in the site plan.
Since there is that duplication in review, she proposed the applications have a combined fee of $700, which is reduced from $850. The $850 normally includes a fee of $350 for the conditional use and $500 for a site plan.
"It takes less time," Lenhard said. "We're going to drop the fee to match our costs."
Lastly, the community development department often requests zoning verification letters and official zoning correspondence, which can take time to research and are often time-sensitive.
The council approved adding a fee of $75 to cover administrative costs to research and prepare such letters.
"We think it's a fair way to handle some of our administrative costs," Lenhard said. "It works out better for the applicants going forward."
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