Special Board of Aldermen 03-01-2021 Page 4
So one of the major changes is that we’ve made the language now so that we will follow right along with the
State of New Hampshire as they update we will update as well and won’t have to go through a lengthy and
time consuming Ordinance change every time the State does so.
With that, we also have the fee changes that we have recommended. Some of you may recall, we began
this in 2017 after some study that showed that our fees were, by far, some of the lowest in the State to
comparable communities to us and communities around us. In 2017 we proposed an increase that went
into effect in 2018. There was some sizeable jumps on the commercial side of it, but we kept those fees
quite low, increases and on residential in 2018 because the market was just starting to return and we didn’t
want to impact them negatively.
So as | stated, in 2017 we began this process of a biannual review of our Ordinances and Fees. In 2018
the fees that we currently have were approved; in 2019 our review process began again. We had
anticipated these fees being before you in 2020, however, through the thorough review of Ordinance 105
and the updated language, it took much longer than we anticipated. We have altered several fees and
calculated them to align with our new software which has been quite tricky. Our hope with this, by bringing
in and having these more rounded fees, we will be able to more quickly bring out our customer portal which
is an online process for citizens and contractors to apply for permits online, submit all of their paperwork
online and pay all of their fees online, therefore reducing a lot of staff time and a lot of wasted paper.
However, as we all know, in 2020 COVID complicated things quite a bit for us. Our offices were not quite
set up to be operating remotely; we have since changed that. But we spent a good deal of time in order to
do that. So that took some time from us to get these fees to our Legal Department for review and from
Legal to get them to you. | know there are some questions on how our process goes with developing these
fees. | have put a directive out to our staff to look at the fees and use an average of between 15% an 20%.
Again though, you will see this year that residential seems to be a larger increase than past, but that was
calculated that was. Because, as | stated before, in 2018 we kept residential lower rather than to impact
that industry at a time when it was trying to recover. We feel that residential has recovered in a good way;
it's very busy right now in the City. As you know, it is very difficult to buy a home and homes that are being
built are not remaining on the market for very long. So now is the time to actually address those fees as
well.
Some of the difficulty that we found this year is as we are reviewing fees, other communities are also
reviewing fees and updating them; trying to get some formulas in there so we can match was very difficult.
And also, the way fees are calculated around the State there is no standardization. In Nashua we use
square footage calculations, length calculations on pipes for plumbing, number of receptacles and devices
under electrical, where other communities will use standard set fees. Some communities include all
electrical and all plumbing under one fee. So it is a very complicated process trying to come up with some
very good comparisons.
From what we can determine though, we still remain lower than, as we have in the past, lower than
Concord and Manchester; about in the same area as Laconia or Keene. And actually | think we are higher
than Laconia but about the same with Keene. So comparable communities we are doing well. We still are
about middle of the road, | would say, on our fee increases with what you have before you. And with that, |
will entertain any questions.
President Wilshire
We are going to open this up to the public and then we will have a discussion at the Personnel Meeting. So
what | would like to do now is | would like to open up the Public Hearing.
