Saugeen Shores has announced that the township is reducing residential building permit fees.
Council approved a 10 per cent reduction in the fees. Josh Planz, the Chief Building Official of Saugeen Shores, explains the decision.
"Building fees are based on cost recovery, so the more efficiently we can pass permits, the lower our fees should be. So we had a consultant look at our fees and they suggested we could lower them by 10 per cent," Planz explained. "The 10 per cent reduction in residential fees will benefit the community for anyone who wants to apply for permitting for a house, for example, so they can reduce their fees by 10 per cent so they'll save a little money on their permit fee."
Mayor Luke Charbonneau adds that council felt this was a good approach to take, especially with the need for housing in the region.
"We identified that we could continue to sustain our building department as a municipality with a 10 per cent reduction to our building permit fees, and that really aligns well with our overall goal which is to see more housing built in our community. If we can reduce any fee and make it cheaper in any way, we wanted to do that," Charbonneau shared. "It isn't gonna be a huge number on any housing start, but we hope that any change we can make to make it more affordable will encourage people to take out building permits and build affordable forms of housing in our community. We hope this will lead to more people doing that."
While most of the recommendations from the report will begin being applied in 2025, council felt strongly that the immediate reduction of building permit fees would benefit the community.
According to a media release, the report also highlighted that the town’s residential building permit fees were in line or lower than benchmarked municipalities such as Owen Sound and Wasaga Beach.
“The Saugeen Shores Building Services division have done an excellent job to ensure they work efficiently and cost effectively which has provided us with the ability to lower this fee,” added Charbonneau. “Council understands that every dollar counts towards supporting the supply of new homes and jumped at the opportunity to put a little money back into the pockets of our residents.”