Bell County considers charging developers for platting and inspection services

Killeen Daily Herald
BY SHANE MONACO | TELEGRAM STAFF
Februaray 6, 2023

Fees for various construction and land development related services could soon come to Bell County.

A proposal to introduce a fee schedule, which would charge developers in the county for platting and inspection services, was tabled Monday by the Commissioners Court in a 3-2 vote. Commissioners Russell Schneider and Louie Minor voted in opposition to the tabling, both for different reasons.

The commissioners who decided to table the item pointed to the need to gather more information about the proposed fees, how they would be administered and get input from local stakeholders.

Minor, who voted against the tabling since he wanted the item to pass Monday, said he thought implementing some fees would help ease the cost to the county as taxpayers are covering the entire amount right now.

“I think it is important that we have a fee schedule,” Minor said. “Every city in the county charges some type of plating or inspection fee to cover the cost of that development and the county is the only one not doing it here. Also, every county touching Bell County has a fee schedule.”

Officials said that the new fees would cover a range of services currently done by the county’s engineering department for free.

These services that would now see fees include the preliminary and final plats for a property, variance requests, detention pond inspections and the inspection of subdivision roadways.

Schneider, who was opposed to the proposal, said it was brought up when the county created its new subdivision regulations.

Schneider said that the anticipated work to process the new fees would come at a significant expense to the county. He said that this expense could outweigh any revenue generated by having developers pay for the services.

“It is going to require more administration,” Schneider said. “So, at least in my opinion, you are going to have to bill it and collect it. So we are going to have to add people to make this happen. In my opinion, there is nothing broken in Bell County, and the developers are just going to pass the cost on.”

Commissioner Bobby Whitson, who supported tabling the proposal, said he had received many questions from builders and developers in the area about the new fees.

Whitson said that although he had received many questions, some of the builders seemed to understand and were not be opposed to some sort of fees for the work performed by the county.

The fees proposed in the schedule, Whitson said, may need to be adjusted to make it easier for builders and the county to calculate how much they need to pay.

“I don’t think that there is anything wrong with the schedule that we have but there were just a lot of questions about it,” Whitson said. “So I think that it would be premature to approve this right now without some of the stakeholders at least having some time to look at (it) and ask questions about it.”

Commissioners also expressed concern about the cost to process and administer the fees.

County Judge David Blackburn said he wanted time to figure out if more staff would need to be hired for the program and how much money the county would have made under the program in previous years before he makes his decision.

“One of the things, from my chair, that I would not like to see is adopting a series of permits that have to be reviewed and administered and then adding staff,” Blackburn said.

When Commissioners decided to table the discussion, they chose to bring it back for discussion at their next workshop on Feb. 13 and vote on it at their Feb. 27 meeting.