Hollywood Park eyes increased fire permits for local businesses

Proposed permit fee schedule highlights:

• Construction permits: 12 different types, with a $300 average fee
• Operational permits: 22 different types for special operations or uses, with a $350 average fee. These will need to be renewed annually
• Miscellaneous fees: these include fire watch, false alarm fee and generalized inspection fees

The fire department would manage all fire department permits, including fee assessment, collection and permit issuance. The permits would be enforced through regular inspections performed by a designated fire inspector. Burnside said the projected annual revenue from the implementation would range from $15,000-$20,000. However, Burnside emphasized that though there would be some revenue from the permits, they are designed with safety in mind.

“[Revenue] is not the main purpose behind permitting. It is to inform the town, and mostly the persons that are going to be responding, police and fire, that this type of operation is in existence at those occupancies,” Burnside said.

The outlook

Mayor Chester Drash agreed with Burnside’s proposal, stating that Hollywood Park needs to get caught up to other municipalities when it comes to fire safety for local businesses. He also noted that these proposed permit fees are a normal part of doing business.

“That's the business world," Drash said. "I probably pay about $1,500 a building per year in San Antonio to meet city code. These fees are small enough they’re not going to put you out of business.”

Place 4 council member and Mayor Pro Tem Wendy Gonzalez expressed reservations about implementing such a robust permit fee schedule, citing cost concerns for local businesses.

“There's a lot of different categories, and if they're annual ... I wouldn't want a business to have to get five or six different kinds of permits and spend thousands of dollars a year,” Gonzalez said.

Place 3 council member Dale Randol expressed concerns that the number of proposed permits could drive businesses away.

“We’ve got 18 pages of permits. A business could do something innocuous and suddenly need another permit, and if they didn’t get it, we could penalize them. That kind of system can create a lot of unnecessary tension with our business owners,” Randol said.

To offset these concerns, Burnside suggested that the City Council place a cap on the number of permits and fees a business has to pay.

“If you want to limit how many permits a business pays, you can say no more than two, focusing only on the most hazardous operations. We can set those limits however you like, even start with just the construction permits for a while and only consider adding operational permits later,” Burnside said.

Stay tuned

The City Council requested a simplified and consolidated permit fee schedule to be presented at a later meeting. They also requested a comparison model from similar-sized municipalities, as well as an example packet for the types of fees certain types of businesses would need to receive.