Ephrata to set rates for reviewing construction plans

EPHRATA — The Ephrata City Council approved an ordinance allowing the city to charge fees for plan reviews, studies, inspections or any city costs related to land or building permits.

The ordinance does not set the fees, it only allows the city to charge them.

City Administrator Wes Crago said this was the first step in the process. Staff are creating a resolution to set the amount of the fees. The city’s process for land use requires a lot of time from the staff, he said.

“In general, you would categorize Ephrata as being negligent in how it recoups for staff time to process land use applications. Other cities, perhaps nearby, a little larger might be at the other side of the spectrum in terms of what they charge,” he said.

Right now, Ephrata isn’t charging enough to recoup it city’s costs, Crago said.

Councilmember Kathleen Allstot asked how much the fees would be.

Community Development Director Ron Sell said city staff would calculate them based off how much work is generally required to review a certain type of plan.

“Philosophically, the staff is less in favor of percentages and more in favor of something you can actually justify or explain and be accountable for. If the fee is $50, it’s because it’s one-tenth of an hour of two employees staff time. Something on that order, rather than 2 percent for this, 5 percent for this and 7 percent for that, which I think is more difficult for us as a government to justify to the public.”

Crago said one of the biggest drains on staffs’ time is plan review, when staff spends hours making sure plans comply with state law.

“That time is lost, I mean, it’s used obviously for the city, but there’s no recouping of costs. Frequently builders, who may not have a clear vision of what they’re trying to build, Ken (Penrose, Ephrata’s building inspector) will have to review the plans multiple times and this would encourage people to have their plans right the first time,” Crago said.

Simpler items, such as plans for a new roof or a sprinkler system, would cost less than more complicated plans, he said.

Councilmember Bruce Reim said this would transfer the costs from the taxpayer to the builder.

Councilmember Heidi Schultheis was concerned because the resolution with the rates wasn’t finished yet.

“I think it’s kind of frustrating, where from a strategic standpoint, I would like to be able to have the ordinance and the resolution all together at one time, to have a greater transparency and have it all laid out at once,” she said. “I think I would be more comfortable to be able to do all of that together rather than piecemeal.”

Crago said there were two reasons why the ordinance was split from the resolution. The first was the ordinance was ready, while the resolution setting the fees isn’t. The second was passing the ordinance puts the issue out to the public so the council can hear more from the public.

“Taking multiple steps and having multiple presentations in front of the council gets the word out more in the public and is a more transparent process,” he said.

Schultheis said this could cause rumors to rise about what the city would charge.

“Because we may get people all riled up by saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re going to be having a $25,000 fee structure set up for roofs,’ and everybody is going to get all upset. When really, you did the appropriate research and said that’s not what we’re going to be doing.”

Crago said when the city does things quickly, which effects how much people have to pay the city, it isn’t taken as well. City staff is planning on scheduling public hearings as well.

“There’s a sense of, ‘I didn’t know about it. I didn’t see it in the paper,’ and the only time they read about it in the paper it’s already been passed,” he said.

Councilmember Ben Davis agreed with the proposal, saying it was long overdue and he didn’t need the rates right now to say the change was necessary.

“I don’t have a problem with basically just at this point saying, ‘We’re going to set up some rate schedules here,” he said. “Now we can negotiate, we can discuss and batter back and forth what those rates are for who knows how long.”

The ordinance passed unanimously.