Fire fees first step in making Chattanooga's permit system more user-friendly

Chattanooga City Hall
Chattanooga City Hall

A vote today to restructure Chattanooga's fire inspection fees will be a first step in a larger effort to make the city's permit system more user-friendly.

The City Council will vote on a second reading of an ordinance today that will restructure fire inspection fees and allow the city's Land Development Office to collect them on behalf of the fire department.

Brent Goldberg, city chief operations officer, said he hopes the new fee schedule and collection option will be a boon for contractors. Builders now have to go to several different locations to pay all the fees necessary to get started.

"Builders have been ranking the city low on this aspect for years, because it's not clear what you are supposed to do," Goldberg said. "We want to make it so anyone can walk off the street and get a permit fairly quickly."

photo Brent Goldberg
photo Roger Tuder, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of East Tennessee.

And for many projects, the cost of the fire fees could go down.

Fire inspection fees now are $50. There's a fee for a fire plan review, a fee for fume hood testing; a fee for nearly everything. On average, builders pay about $300 in fire fees alone, Goldberg said.

Under the new fee schedule, the cost for all fire inspections will be 20 percent of the cost of the building permit.

Goldberg said the average building permit fee in the quarter that ended in December 2014, was $1,015, so the average fire fee would have been $203.

Under the proposed fee change, a $1 million project will have a fire fee that's $209 more than the current system. But a $250,000 project will see a $200 decrease in fire fees.

"We might get slightly more fees, but overall we are expecting a wash because the really big projects are few and far between," Goldberg said.

Despite fees going up for larger projects, builders are happy.

Roger Tuder, president and CEO of Associated General Contractors of East Tennessee, said his members aren't concerned about slightly higher fees on big projects, because they are comfortable they'll get better service from the city.

"We looked at it and certainly appreciate having a one-stop-type environment to expedite the plan review process -- plus we don't have to drive from one side of the city to the other to get the permits," Tuder said. "We feel confident that we will get better service, and that's the bottom line."

Goldberg said the fee change is the first step in a larger project to rework the permit process in the city.

"By December, we will have a whole new permitting process. It will take this 100 steps further," he said.

Other changes include streamlining and reworking permit forms, and building a system to allow builders to submit plans online.

The City Council will vote on the second reading of the fee changes today at its 6 p.m. meeting.

Contact staff writer Louie Brogdon at lbrogdon@timesfreepress.com, @glbrogdoniv on Twitter or at 423-757-6481.

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