[Massplanners] Filing Fees

[Nancy Durfee, Lakeville Town Planner]

Lakeville would be interested. Thank you.
Nancy


Nancy Durfee
Town of Lakeville
346 Bedford Street
Lakeville, MA 02347
ndurfee at lakevillema.org<mailto:ndurfee at lakevillema.org>
(508) 946-8800, extension 343

[Town Seal]



From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Daniel Fortier via MassPlanners
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2025 5:52 PM
To: 'Richard McCarthy' <rmccarthy at norfolk.ma.us>; 'Mass Planners' <massplanners at masscptc.org>
Subject: Re: [Massplanners] Filing Fees

Richard,

I will forward you the results of the fee structure analysis under a separate email as the listserve does not always like attachments.  But, the process below I first used in Fairhaven and then used the same analysis in Dennis. The process was run by staff at the Department of Revenue while I was in Fairhaven as the fee increase was going to be significant and I did not want any question as to whether it was considered an illegal tax.

Step 1

Determine which staff worked on applications to the Planning Board and Board of Appeals and the portion of their time that was associated with project review or other support aspects of guiding applications through the process.  As both offices were only staffed by the Planner and one Planning Assistant, I came up with the following:

Planner 50% of time associated with application Review.
Planning Assistant 80% of time associated with Board support (agenda’s, legal notices, abutters, filing decisions etc)

Step 2

Aggregate number of applications reviewed and, if possible size of various projects. I found that I spent more time on larger projects than smaller ones and set up a structure (which will be illustrated in the attachments under separate cover) to assign costs appropriatele.

Step 3

Determine how to assign costs across the different types of applications, Special Permit Reviews, Modifications to projects, Subdivision (ANR, Preliminary and Definitive), sign code, Variance, etc.

On Special Permits, I determined there should be a flat fee for projects, and then additional fees for projects over particular sizes. This attempted to ensure that the homeowner adding a bathroom was not paying more than Stop and Shop (in both Fairhaven and Dennis, when I arrived a large commercial project would be the same, or less, than a homeowner adding a bathroom).

Anyone else wanting to see the end result of this approach, let me know (except Bill Roth who had to live with this fee structure a a LONG time and probably knows these fees inside out - Just Kidding Bill)

Dan Fortier, AICP
Retired Planner



From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org<mailto:massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org>> On Behalf Of Richard McCarthy via MassPlanners
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2025 4:11 PM
To: Mass Planners <massplanners at masscptc.org<mailto:massplanners at masscptc.org>>
Subject: [Massplanners] Filing Fees

[cid:image001.gif at 01DB68B2.3CAC3DF0]
Good afternoon,

I know I’ve seen filing fee analysis done. I’m hoping someone could forward their analysis to me.

Thanks in advance.

Richard J. McCarthy, Jr.
Town Planner
1 Liberty Lane
Norfolk, MA 02056
508-440-2807
Office Hours- Monday through Thursday 9am to 6pm
Closed Fridays

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