East Hartford officials will consider reducing the town’s building permit fees after recent requests from a hotel developer and a local car dealer planning an expansion.
Hoffman Auto Group co-chairman I. Bradley Hoffman recently asked the town for relief from its “extremely uncompetitive” permit fee structure. The auto dealer is planning to demolish its former Used Car Superstore at 650 Connecticut Blvd., to make room for a new 35,000-square-foot “Generation 5” Porsche dealership.
Hoffman said he was surprised by the fee estimates of $360,000.
That is more than double the permit fees paid for a BMW dealership recently constructed in Waterbury, Hoffman noted.
“As a long-term and loyal commercial taxpayer and community member in East Hartford, we are respectfully asking that these uncompetitive fees be reviewed and reconsidered,” Hoffman wrote in a letter to East Hartford Mayor Mike Walsh.
Walsh, on Tuesday morning, said the town recently received a similar plea for building permit relief from New Jersey-based Kautilya Group, which is working on a comprehensive rehab and redevelopment of the shuttered and decaying former Hartford Hotel & Conference Center on Roberts Street.
Hoffman’s request will go before the Town Council during its Tuesday night meeting. Walsh said he anticipates the council will send the question to a subcommittee to develop recommendations.
If the council decides to adjust the fees, it could offer relief to individual projects, and perhaps contemplate a broader adjustment, or it could adjust fees universally, Walsh said.
Walsh said complaints about the fee structure have been ongoing since their adoption seven years ago.
“They are taking it up because they know the fees are uncompetitive,” Walsh said of the council.
