Collier lowers fees for builders

NAPLES — Collier County cut development-related application fees and announced plans to hire 16 people to handle the increased number of applications from developers and builders.

“Our goal is to promote a business-friendly environment and we believe that lowering fees and hiring more people to serve the increase in customers helps us achieve that goal,” says Growth Management Department Head David Wilkison in a statement.

Collier County commissioners agreed to lower development-related application, processing review and inspection fees by 3.5%. They also agreed to a minor reduction to engineering re-inspection fees in order to be consistent with other inspection fees. The reduction will save developers about $401,000 annually, the county says.

The 16 new full-time positions will be funded with current user-fee reserves, which require no additional fees and will have no impact on the general fund. The Growth Management Department will hire four senior building inspectors, a fire plans reviewer, a permitting supervisor, two planners, three planning technicians, a fiscal technician, a senior operations analyst, a site-plans reviewer, a senior project manager and a planned unit development coordinator.