St. Cloud City Council Scales Back Building Permit Fee Increase, Sets August 31st Hearing

(KNSI) – The St. Cloud City Council voted 7-0 Monday night to scale back its building permit fee proposal and schedule a fourth public hearing for August 31st, even as the amount the package would raise has climbed by roughly $300,000 since May.

The amendment drops the proposed update to the city’s building valuation data table and sets a firm effective date of January 1st, 2027. The table assigns a dollar value to a project by square footage, and the fee schedule is applied to that value, so updating it would have raised permit costs on its own. Because the change is a change of substance, the city charter requires another published hearing before adoption.

The revenue estimate went the other way. Staff told the council in May the changes would bring in about $500,000 a year. The figure presented Monday, with the valuation table already stripped out, is $800,000. Council President Mike Conway attributed the difference to the fee rates, expected building activity and a new position meant to unclog plan review.

“It doesn’t take nearly as much time to review a deck plan as it does to review a 250-unit apartment complex. The problem is we have the same reviewer reviewing both. And if that big thing comes in, all of a sudden, all the smaller ones stop behind it.”

Conway said the goal is not full cost recovery.

“We’re never going to be able to have the fees cover a hundred percent of what it costs to provide that service. But at least we’re trying to right size that so that we’re being fair to the taxpayers, but also not gouge the builders and the people paying the fees.”

Steve Gottwalt, government affairs consultant for the Central Minnesota Builders Association, said the group will not back an increase at any level.

“I think our point is we think the city is spending enough right now. We think they need to do a better job with the money they’re already spending. And we’d rather see them not increase costs, especially at a time when I think St. Cloud is facing challenges in getting the kind of commercial and residential development it needs.”

City staff presented figures putting the Building Safety Department’s 2027 budget at $3,701,658 in expenditures against $1,229,500 in revenue, meaning fees currently cover 33% of the cost. The proposal would raise that to 49%. Commercial permits account for $626,000 of the increase, with $174,000 from residential.

Building permit fees in St. Cloud have not been adjusted since 2007.

City examples put the increase on a new home between $250 and $1,153 depending on size, though the St. Cloud Area Association of Realtors, which has not detailed how it arrived at the figure, has estimated the changes could add $1,000 to $4,000 to a typical new build.

Adoption requires four votes. The August 31st meeting and public hearing begin at 6:00 p.m. at city hall.

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