Proposed Man Camp Fee Schedule Causes Confusion in Council

Confusion, discussion and more confusion surrounded an item on Tuesday’s City Council agenda, when the Council heard the first introduction of a fee schedule meant to be created to address the future of mobile home, manufactured housing and RV parks within city limits.

The first public hearing included an introduction of the fee schedule, presented by Planning Manager AJ Fawver, that has been developed in cooperation with the city’s Planning Commission and the Housing Authority.

The fee schedule is one part of several new ordinances the Commission has been attempting to draft and iron out since a moratorium on ‘man camp’ or mobile/RV applications was set in place last November.

In her presentation, Fawver introduced three different fees in the schedule, including those for initial applications, transfer of park ownership, and for annual renewal of permits when an expansion or transfer is not taking place. The fees associated with each element, Fawver said, were not estimated based on experience since the ordinance is new, but were reflect the anticipated amount of work city workers would have to put in to process each step.

“The initial permit for a new park or expansion of an existing park would be the more in depth of the three processes, because that would require the site plan review of the additional spaces, the additional units, the additional land and the layout, so that is the highest of the three fees at ($)425,” Fawver said.

“Number three, permit for renewal when there’s not any sort of transfer or expansion, that’s a lower fee proposal of 250,” she continued. “Again, the work investment, time investment in that for staff would be significantly less, theoretically. And then lastly, the proposal for transfer of park ownership at $100. Of course of all the three processes, that would be probably the simplest and fastest for processing,” she explained.

Fawver’s fees were kept conservative, she said, because prior experience had shown that Council prefers to keep fees reasonable. Tuesday, the fees were a bit too conservative and Councilman Winkie Wardlaw expressed concern that they may, in fact too low.

“Well, I personally don’t want the taxpayers to bear any of the cost of this. I think you were being very conservative, because you’ve got all that background work and you’ve got up here behind the planning commission and the City Council,” Wardlaw said. “I’ve been involved with this since January of 2013, and my observations are that most of these people are from out of town, and I think you’re too low on that and I’d like to see you raise it. How did you calculate that on a per-hour basis?”

Fawver explained that in order to estimate the costs of personnel, managers of different divisions were contacted and asked how much time their staff would need to review and process the applications. The average wage was used in coming up with the total cost.

At her response, Wardlaw again iterated that he’d like to see the fees raised to reflect the costs of overhead, and stated that he didn’t want the taxpayers to end up bearing any of the cost burden. His arguments were picked up by Councilwoman Charlotte Farmer later in the discussion, stating that she had looked at a chart of fees charged for city services which indicated that some previous service fees were priced so low that they were essentially being given away. “I would like to see the first one increase considerably,” she said.

Having roughly addressed the first fee, which as proposed would be assessed to new applicants and those applying for expansion, Councilman Rodney Fleming sought further clarification on fee number three, the fee associated with permit renewals exempting those being transferred or expanded upon.

“Number three is a renewal permit,” Fawver explained. “You might recall that the permit, as it is drafted, will be an annual operator’s permit. So, once a year you would go through the process of making an application. The way that we have modified the process…after several discussions…is an attempt to shorten that. The way that it is currently drafted is that you would make application for permit, we would look at our site plan, if there were no changes proposed, we would simply be doing the work of processing the paperwork and notifying the departments, not including the inspection on site. So that’s why that process would actually cost us less than the number one…where we would actually have to send various departments and divisions out to the site.”

The proposed annual fee would apply to all parks—both those that already exist, and those to come in the future. In addition to that, a supplemental fee of $5 per space would also be charged annually, which Fawver explained was intended to fund compliance certifications on site each year. Fleming, took issue with the annual fee, citing a burden on established residents and a loss of focus on the initial objective. 

“What we’re doing is the parks that are existing right now, we’re asking them to do a yearly inspection and pay a tax every year,” Fleming said. “I’ve talked to some of the park owners in town. We need to ‘grandfather’…all of them in and leave them alone, leave it just as it is, today, not a single thing—this is my opinion—not a single should change…they should just keep on operating the way they are now, he said.

“This whole thing started when we wanted to stop man camps…what has happened here is we’ve gone way beyond man camps. In fact, no one’s even talking about man camps anymore,” Fleming continued. “What we’re talking about is trailer park and RV park owners that are already existing in this city, and we’re going to strap them down with new fees and new regulations, which I hope none of us up here want to do that to these people. These are all tax-paying residents that live in our city now. My opinion is that we strike number three—even for the new parks coming in—I don’t think that they should be paying that.”

After Fleming finished speaking, Farmer spoke out, astonished.  “It’s amazing; I agree with him,” she said, then added, “I do not want the fees assessed to existing mobile home or manufactured home parks.” This was not intended to burden existing businesses, she said.

In the interest of moving things along, Farmer made a motion of raising the initial application fee to $600, and dropping the third fee altogether. Following some further deliberation, Silvas suggested that the initial application fee be raised to $1,000, rather than $600, and Wardlaw pushed for Farmer to amend to $1,000-$1,200, keeping the $5 per space supplemental fee in place.

Up until now, the transfer of park ownership fee had yet to be discussed—the second of the three fees Fawver started with—and Wardlaw imagines this one is also too low, mentions it to Farmer. Farmer notes the mound of paperwork that could potentially be involved in the process, and throws out $500 as a suggestion for the price.

The suggestion is not shot down. Once again concerned about the existing park owners, Council members reach an agreement that expansions should only cost the originally proposed $425. Having agreed upon this, Fawver is asked for clarification of the dizzying changes Council has made.

She reads back her notes: Permits for new parks will be raised to $1,000; item number two, transfer of park ownership, $600; strike number three altogether; add language that this is only for new parks, not existing parks; and $425 for expansion of existing parks. The supplemental fee of $5 would apply to both.

Satisfied with her report, Council appears to agree, and calls for public comment.  Marshal Gray of the San Angelo KOA approaches the podium and thanks Council for their consideration and hearing of his comment. But, “You’ve got to clear something up for me,” he says. “Transfer of park ownership, $600. What am I transferring? Am I transferring the permit that I don’t have?”

“It’s like when you sell a piece of property,” Fleming replies.

“Evidently, he wasn’t on the committee,” the mayor jokes. There have been a number of complaints by home builders, property and park owners that they were not asked for opinions or consultations when the Housing Committee was selected.

“When I sell a piece of property—and I’ve sold several over the years—I go to an attorney and he fills out all the paperwork, but there’s not a transfer fee in there,” Gray responds. “I just need a little clarity on that if you don’t mind.”

Fawver explains that should a property be sold, the entities involved will have to notify the city and make them aware, for code enforcement reasons. The city needs to know who the point of contact is. 

“Why would the city be involved? Why would the city be involved in that?” Mayor Morrison asks.

“We typically wouldn’t be,” Fawver says. “In fact, we are never even notified when property changes hands, however if we’re going to hold people accountable for having a permit, we need to know who it is that we’re holding accountable.”

Morrison is still unclear on the fee assessment, and continues. “Well why should we charge them $600, though? I don’t understand. What’s the city doing to earn $600 or to have a $600 stake when someone sells property?”

Recalling the discussions of the past half hour, Fawver says, “Well, the $600 just came from you all. We recommended a $100 fee to do the paperwork of transferring that permit over, to make sure our records reflect correct ownership.”

“But we’re not doing anything,” Morrison responds. “I mean, there’s no work involved, we’re not inspecting anything. I don’t understand that as well.”

At this point, both Fleming and Farmer note the amount of paperwork that goes into transferring information from one person to another. Comparing the process to apartments, Farmer mentions emergency files, after-hour calls, sewer and safety-related issues as examples of data that will need to be corrected under the new name so that city departments know who to contact in case there is a problem.

“So we charge $600 to change a computer name? “ Morrison says, before announcing that he will vote against the matter until the price becomes reasonable. The motion carried 4-3 at $600 for the transfer fee, with the previously mentioned agreements in place. The hearing was the first of two that will be held before anything is passed.