Lafourche Parish Council slashes permits fees

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Although some say the Lafourche Parish Planning and Permitting Department will operate at a deficit when grant funds run dry, the parish council voted to cut some permit fees by more than 50 percent, minimizing the maligned department’s main source of revenue in an effort to breathe life into it.

The council slashed the base fees for plumbing and electrical permitting by 60 percent. The permits will now cost $50 each, which includes a $25 inspection fee. Additional inspections, which cost $75 prior to the changes, were also drawn back to $25.


“As far as the increase in permits, we’ll have to wait and see if maybe more people say, ‘Hey, you know what, fifty bucks or a $25 inspection is not too, too bad,'” said Dist. 2 Councilman Michael Delatte, who has sponsored four ordinances geared at reducing prices over the last two meetings. “What happens if that guy is building a new home and he has to come back six or seven or eight times?”


Over the course of the year, several parish residents have voiced their displeasure with the permits department. Among the charges, people have said Frank Morris, the parish’s Chief Building Official, has been too strict with his inspections, which forces builders to commission additional inspections.

Parish President Charlotte Randolph said the only way the parish could reduce the number of times an inspector is sent to a site is if a builder follows the guidelines in first getting an electrical or plumbing blueprint approved and then adhering to it.


“I don’t know that we can reduce the number of inspections, simply because we’ve got to watch the process,” Randolph said. “If it’s required in the process, then we’re not going to scrimp on the number of inspections.”


Under the former fee schedule, six additional inspections would cost someone $450 plus the $125 base fee. Now, the total cost for six inspections on a plumbing or electrical system will total $200, a savings of $375.

“It’s certainly going to have an impact (on the department),” Randolph said. “The fees were based on the cost of doing business. At the same time, we’ll have to make some adjustments in order to cover the costs in the future.”


Delatte said the reductions could decrease the amount of people who modify or build first and then apply for a permit post-construction. Cheaper prices could also drive more traffic into the permit office, he said.


Dist. 7 Councilman Philip Gouaux voiced opposition to the new fees, which he called “pretty light,” but still voted in favor of cutting the prices. Diminishing the revenue stream for the permits department would provide relief to builders, but all parish residents pay into the parish’s general fund, which would have to subsidize the department’s shortcomings, Gouaux said.

“The rest of the council voted and was in agreement to cut the fees,” Gouaux said. “I think it’s going to be a temporary cut because I’m going to have to go back and show them at a later date the impact that those cuts have.”


Using taxpayer money to fund a service isn’t something specific to the permit department, Randolph said, emphasizing parish-offered services have to be financed somehow. “You can say the same thing about recreation,” she said.

The council approved the permit department’s creation in May of last year after the parish ended its tenuous relationship with South Central Planning and Development, who handled permitting authority for Lafourche and nine other jurisdictions..

The department was funded with two grants totaling $760,000 in 2011. One, worth $460,000 awarded by the Louisiana State Uniform Code Council, had a two-year lifespan for equipment needed to start-up a permitting department. The other, from the state Office of Community Development, funds personnel and has to be renewed annually.

Randolph denied that the department was losing money. The costs were expected to be more for a start-up department because of the necessity for computers, scanners, vehicles and first-year personnel salary costs, she said.

“I don’t know that we can apply for these (grants) annually,” Randolph said. “We have to demonstrate that we continue to build the department. I haven’t spoken to Mr. Morris about that yet. The equipment grant is not recurring. I do know that South Central Planning is applying for an additional grant, and if that’s possible, we’ll do it again.”

The department’s fee schedule was carried over from South Central Planning. South Central Planning CEO Kevin Belanger said the fee schedule was based on a revenue-neutral structure that took into account one salaried CBO, several full-time employees, vehicles and gasoline needed to service its jurisdictions.

“We concluded what the fee structure we came up with was what we needed to meet our financial obligations,” Belanger said. “I’ve got to tell you, that was pretty much on the button. We have found that without doing that, we would have operated in the red for quite a few years.”

South Central Planning services a population of 320,000 people and does so at a cost equitable to a population of 30,000 people, Belanger said. He added that the fee schedule puts the burden on the people who are actually using the service and said their biggest concern was to not have to draw extra money from jurisdictions’ general funds to cover expenses.

“If you build something, you will pay your fair share,” Belanger said. “If you don’t build anything in the parish any time during that fiscal year, you don’t pay any money towards that effort.”

At its final October meeting, the council eliminated fees for driveways and fences, also scratching the requirement that parish residents need permits for those types of property modifications.

The permit office had not issued a driveway permit since it was conceived 16 months ago, Delatte said. The councilman said it’s a “mathematical uncertainty” that no resident in the parish poured a concrete driveway since last May.

“The law is on the books whether you enforce it or not,” Delatte said. “The law is the law. If it was still on the books, it still counted. Now, if you pour a driveway tomorrow, you’re not breaking the law if you live in Lafourche Parish, and if you put up that fence for your dog, you’re not breaking the law.”