Analysis

Sponsor: Senator Stille
Topic: Plat Fees

The Department of Consumer and Industry Services supports Senate Bill 130.

The bill amends the Land Division Act to restore statutory language related to state plat review fees, which expired under a sunset provision on October 1, 1998. No new sunset provisions are included in the bill. The bill is designed to address a Department of Consumer and Industry Services budget issue in that approximately $225,000 has been appropriated in the 1998-99 budget from these fees.

Enactment of the bill will permit the department to resume collecting the fees and will allow continuation of the plat review program at its current level. Before the fees were imposed in 1991 plat reviews consistently required 25 days longer than the 15-day period mandated by the law. Imposition of the fees allowed the department to hire surveyors to reduce average review periods to 10 days. The homebuilding industry supports the fee, because developers have to borrow money to start their project and every day that a project is delayed means an additional day of interest on that loan.