The Fee Stopping Progress
A citizen writes in to protest the city's building permit tax, arguing it stifles growth rather than ensuring safety.
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The recent announcement that a building permit has been procured by a local company to erect a $50,000 opera house must have been hailed with delight, but whether the $5 tax collected by the city met with like joy is a question. Of all things unjust, impolitic, and inexpedient, the building permit fee takes the cake. A man applies to the city for a permit to do an act that will benefit the entire city; that will give employment to labor, enhance the value of neighboring property, and enlarge the city's future tax roll, and yet he is required to pay for the privilege of performing that very act. The defenders of this tax will argue that it is necessary to maintain a building inspector, but I hold that every citizen has as much interest in the safe erection of buildings as has the owner, and every citizen has as much right to pay for the inspection. I believe that the proper thing for us to do is not only to give building permits free but to give water free, and if possible, exempt every new home erected in this city from city taxation for the first three years.
“A man applies to the city for a permit to do an act that will benefit the entire city... and yet he is required to pay for the privilege of performing that very act.”
Debates over the cost of development and how city fees influence housing construction are at the absolute center of Seattle's modern urban planning struggles.
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