Little Silver permit applicants to cover Planning Board costs

The Little Silver Mayor and town council approved an ordinance amending the municipal “Land Use and Development Ordinance” to include $200-$300 application fees for those seeking development permits.

“If we do not raise these fees, then all the tax payers in the Borough of Little Silver will be paying the fees,” Mayor Suzanne Castleman noted at Monday’s council meeting. “Why should everyone here be paying for the guy who’s building that house, or building that addition, and so on?”

The ordinance was originally presented to the Little Silver Planning Board at their last meeting, where it was “shot down strongly” in a 5-4 vote, according to councilman and Planning Board representative Jonathan H. Bitman.

"We disagreed with them, we explained what it was based on, that it was comparable to other areas," Bitman stated. “They were adamant about not raising the fees.”

Bitman said their reasons for not approving the ordinance included anxiety over residents cheating and not applying for a permit "if they’re just doing something small" (“I said that was obviously defective reasoning”) and disagreement over a $200 fee that residents would have to pay to replace an air conditioning compressor.

“But that’s the one application of that,” said Bitman. “If you’re putting in a shed or other things, we explained that it’s just not fair to the tax base as a whole to subsidize the department.”

Bitman added, “If there’s two hundred permits or projects a year, and 2,175 addresses [in the borough], why should 1,975 addresses subsidize the 200 that are doing work?”

The Planning Board also argued that the fees cost too much money. “They used the excuse of the economy and that’s not a valid excuse,” Bitman said. “If you’re putting a $600,000 addition on your house, the economy is not bothering you. If you’re coming before the Planning Board for a variance to extend the house to do a property addition to do anything other than maintenance, you cannot use the economy as an excuse.”

“I do not think that all of us should be paying for somebody else’s additions,” Castleman replied. ‘Talk about hard times, money-wise. If somebody’s going to build a $600,000 house, why should I pay the fees? Why should any of us?”

Although all amendments to “Land Use and Development” ordinances within a municipality are to be referred to the Planning Board, the Mayor and town council still has the power to approve them.

The ordinance was unanimously passed at last night’s meeting, with an amendment introduced at the end of the meeting by Borough Attorney John O. Bennett III to lower development permit fees for air conditioners to $100. There will be a public hearing on this amendment during the council meeting on Apr. 7.

In accordance with the new ordinance, there is now a $200 application fee for a development permit that includes fences and sheds under 100 square feet; a $300 application fee for a development permit that does not require a certificate of occupancy; and a $200 application fee for a development permit that requires an inspection and/or a certificate of occupancy, plus engineering escrow to be calculated by the Borough Engineer.