Brookfield has increased fees to obtain permits for building and construction projects to better cover the costs of labor that the permits require from village staff.
Trustees approved a new minimum permit fee of $100 across the board and shifted some fees from a flat price to a percentage of the overall price of the construction project in question at the village board’s Jan. 13 meeting. The board approved the measure 5 to 1, with Trustee Edward Côté the sole vote against it.
One of the biggest changes is the implementation of a fee for plan review, when village staffers in the community development department must review blueprints for a construction project before work may begin. That fee will be $100 per hour billed in $50, half-hour increments, Building Division Manager Michelle Niemeyer told trustees.
A full list of the fees affected by the new $100 minimum or that are now percentage-based is available as an attachment to the measure’s memo in the agenda for the meeting.
Niemeyer said she sought the change to better align Brookfield’s fee schedule with those of Riverside, LaGrange and LaGrange Park and to keep the percentage-based permit fee at 1.75% of the cost of construction rather than raising that figure to 2%.
“When [Community Development Director] Libby [Popovic] came to me with results of the budget workshop, and she said, ‘[Trustees are] concerned about that 2% increase,’ I said, ‘Well, I just can’t figure financially how these other towns are maintaining with that 1.75,’ so I dug a little deeper, and I found that every neighboring community charges plan review fees,” she said at the meeting. “I counted approximately 600 permits in 2024 that would have been eligible for plan review fees out of our 1600. If we charge each of those at the minimum, half an hour, that’s about $30,000 in lost revenue.”
In response to questions from Trustee Jennifer Hendricks, Niemeyer said she expected most plan reviews would cost just $50 and that reviews for larger or commercial construction project plans, like for new homes or “significant” additions, will continue to be sent directly to B&F Construction Code Services, an Elgin-based plan review firm, meaning Brookfield’s new plan review fees will not apply.
“Those pass-through fees are going to remain what they have been. This would be more for in-house fees that myself, [Building and Code Enforcement Inspector] Jordan [Isenberg] or, if the B&F inspector is on staff that day, in-house, doing a review; otherwise, I don’t see that that plan review is going to be a very significant add-on fee.”
At the meeting, Côté initially questioned whether smaller projects, like putting up a new fence, for example, would trigger plan review fees alongside permit fees; Niemeyer said they would.
“I anticipate that the majority of fences would fall into the 0.5 increment of a plan review, so I think that would be a $150 permit, which does align, actually, with all of our neighboring communities,” she said. “We are only higher than LaGrange, and that’s by $10; otherwise, we are less than all of our neighbors with that set of standards for plan review.”
Côté said he ultimately was not in support of the measure.
“If I’m going to put in a shed, and the shed is like $500, and now I’m going to kick over another $150 in permit fees to the village for a $500 shed, I think that’s almost to the point where I’m just going to put in the shed without going in for a permit. I don’t want to be that prohibitive, either,” he said. “I understand that there’s a need or a desire to have a minimum cost to associate for the man-hours spent towards things, but at the same time, taking into consideration that if a project’s like $600, and they’re going to be paying $150 to $200 to the village to go through the process of it, I’m just not a big fan of that part.”
After some back-and-forth discussion about which kinds of repairs could trigger the need for a permit, and therefore to pay a fee, Niemeyer agreed to be clearer on when a permit is needed.
“I’ve seen all sorts of different scenarios in different communities, but one thing that I came across multiple times was, ‘What is excluded from a permit requirement in this community?’” she said. “I think, speaking to your concerns, Trustee Côté, if we were very clear on our building page stating, ‘The following items do not require a building permit,’ and something like a repair to a deck, a minor repair to a boiler or hot water heater — items that are just routine maintenance — would not require permitting, and it could be more clarified like that on our website.”
Before the board approved the change, Village President Michael Garvey underscored the need to balance the experienced price to residents with the costs of staff labor.
“The goal of this is to sustain the department, be able to pay for what we need to do and to offer the services so it can be done quickly. As [Niemeyer] explained, the 1.75%, other towns do that, but they also have these other fees,” he said. “We can say we’re uncomfortable with some of these things, but it’s paying for these things. This isn’t bonus money; it’s paying for the things that we are providing and residents need or want. They might not want permits or inspections, but, as a policy decision, we have to have those.”
