The Harrison Township Committee elected to waive any review plan fees the township has with Clearview Regional High School at its Nov. 4 meeting.
The issue stems from the township school district’s recent project to install new HVAC equipment in its buildings. While the initial cost of the project – $200,000 according to Mayor Louis Manzo – was waived, the district was unaware of the fee charge, which it did not factor into the cost of the work. The fee was subsequently charged to the district.
“We (all government agencies) have a custom to ‘not charge’ other government agencies the permit fees for construction projects,” Manzo explained. “The state statute reads that local agencies (like us) ‘may’ charge these fees, but our local ordinance reads that we ‘do not.’ The statute also reads that local agencies ‘may’ also charge for the ‘plan review fees’ associated with permits, which can be up to 10% of the total permit-fee cost.
“Apparently,” he added, “our local ordinance does not have any wording regarding the plan review fees. Over the years, we have never charged this ‘10% plan review fee’ either.”
The township’s code official is charged with assessing any fees and issues permits for projects like the HVAC work. Since the statute wording did not include not charging the fees, the official sent a bill of $20,000 in review plan costs – 10% of the total project cost – to Clearview.
“Our new code official, in following the wording of our ordinance, sent a bill to Clearview for the plan review fees for their recent major HVAC project, Manzo said. “The permit fees for this project would have been approximately $200,000, which were waived, as our custom and as our ordinance stipulates.
“The ‘however’ here,” he added, “is that the plan review fees (10% of the permit fee cost) amount to about $20,000, and that bill was sent to Clearview, as I stated (in the meeting). They responded by questioning that bill, since they had never been charged this fee in the past and they hadn’t incorporated that cost into the estimate for the HVAC project.”
The fee topic prompted a lengthy discussion among committee members at the meeting about the type of precedent waiving the bill would set, specifically with regard to other projects by groups such as Rowan University and Inspira Health, both of whom have expanded into Mullica Hill in recent years.
Since the committee waived the past fee, and because of Clearview’s ignorance of it, members elected to again waive it. Township Administrator Dennis Chambers and Township Solicitor Brian J. Duffield are currently working on revising the wording to the existing ordinance. The new measure is expected to be introduced in the next two committee meetings.
“Going forward,” Manzo emphasized, “our administrator and solicitor will devise wording to amend our ordinance and officially address the plan review fees for government agency applications in the future.”
