N. Aurora may discount permit fees to spur home sales

North Aurora may join other communities that are discounting permit fees to spur new-home construction.

But how the village will go about doing that is up in the air.

"I think it comes down to a philosophy: Is there something we can really do to help our builders?" Village President Dale Berman asked the trustees at Monday's board meeting.

Like many other suburbs, new-home construction has plummeted in North Aurora. Instead of the 400-plus permits it issued in fiscal 2000, in the first six months this year it issued about 10.

Five homebuilders, including R.A. Faganel and Gladstone, recently asked the village to cut all permit fees in half and to change building codes.

The village's development committee rejected the code changes, which builders estimated could have saved $6,500 per house.

But the board agreed some sort of rebate on the fees might be feasible, even if it wasn't the 50 percent developers wanted.

The community development department evaluated the various fees for plan review and water and sewer connection and suggested cuts that could equal 36 percent, or a savings of about $3,200 per home. The village would send the rebate to the home buyers as long as they received occupancy permits within a year of the permit being issued. The committee suggested offering the deal on up to 50 permits taken out between January to June of 2010. The developers suggested it start sooner.

Trustee Mike Herlihy asked if the village couldn't do the same thing in a simpler manner by just cutting fees instead of inventing a new program to manage.

Other trustees agreed that should be investigated, and asked Community Development Director Scott Buening to calculate what the savings might be and to report back at a later date.

Trustee Vince Mancini said he wanted to see data on how effective any discount would be in attracting home buyers to North Aurora. Berman said he didn't think the reduction would be a "significant" factor in people's decisions, but that it would send a symbolic message that the village is trying to help the home-construction industry to recover.

At the very least, a fee reduction or rebate might spur completion of some subdivisions, Herlihy said, describing incomplete developments he's seen in other towns with only one or two homes completed, unfinished streets and weed-filled vacant lots.

"That to me is a really serious form of blight," he said.