Building permit fees in Dayton likely to double or triple in price

The city of Dayton is on track to raise building permit fees across the board as part of the first major, comprehensive overhaul in 22 years, city officials said.

Under the proposal, which likely will head to a city commission vote next week, the city would double or triple the price of a variety of licenses that builders are required to obtain before starting construction, as well as add a few new charges.

The city received slightly more than $1.4 million in revenue from its building permits in 2016.

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Dayton’s building department has struggled to keep up with the demand for its services because of the large amount of development activity going on around the city, officials said.

New revenue will be put toward hiring two additional inspectors, increasing the total from seven to nine. The city is looking at hiring a plans examiner at least part time during the busy construction system.

“We have had a lot of input saying, ‘Please provide better customer service. Raise fees if necessary to generate those resources,’” said Ford Weber, Dayton’s director of economic development.

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The city has completed a comprehensive analysis of its fee structure that compared its charges to those of other cities, including similar-sized communities and urban centers, officials said.

The city made some minor modifications to its fees in the early 2000s, but this was the first wholesale review since the 1990s, said City Manager Shelley Dickstein.

“Clearly, we have some catching up to do,” Dickstein said.

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The city’s fees are currently well below those of Ohio’s other largest cities, and the planned revisions still make Dayton’s fee structure competitive, officials said. Montgomery County recently increased some of its building permit fees.

The city’s plans include:

  • Tripling the minimum fee for commercial/industrial zoning certificates
  • Doubling the minimum fee for sign permits to $50 and tripling the fee for temporary use zoning permits to $75
  • Increasing the fee for a commercial certificate of occupancy to $200 from $60; nearly tripling fee for residential certificate of occupancy to $100
  • Increasing building permit fee schedule so that it is $35 for the first $2,000 in value of a project. For the next $98,000 in valuation, the fee is 0.01 multiplied by the project value (which changes from 0.007 multiplied by the value). For valuation in excess of $100,000, it is 0.005 multiplied by the project value, up from 0.0025.
  • Flat fees would change each year, based on inflation calculations from the Consumer Price Index

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The city provided the following chart to illustrate how the new building fee permit schedule would alter prices.

Construction cost Current for Dayton Proposed for Dayton Cincinnati Cleveland
$200,000 residential $971 $1,515 $1,935 $2,060
$1 million commercial $2,971 $6,050 $8,335 $12,200

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