HMB whittles down permit backlog

In recent years, Half Moon Bay leaders, girding themselves for a shoestring budget, had to decide to make do with much less. That meant the city delayed infrastructure projects, pulled back services and generally tried to keep the town running with a skeleton crew.

One lesser-known consequence of those lean years was a backlog of hundreds of incomplete, expired building permits. These permits ranged from simple bathroom or kitchen remodels to the construction of entire new buildings. In most of the cases, the property owner applied for permits, but never called the citys Building Department to close out the project. Meanwhile, the city wasnt taking an active role and was waiting for homeowners to make contact.

City officials believe that in many cases property owners were deliberately closing out their projects. Property owners did so to avoid higher property taxes, said Community Development Director Dante Hall.

They feel that somewhere, somehow, some way the state will call for a reassignment of taxes, he said. People didnt want to call for a final because they felt their property will be reassessed.

Any construction or improvements on a property can trigger new assessed property taxes, according to rules established by the state Board of Equalization. However, most homeowners who took out building permits had already paid all the citys fees. The only way they would be charged more by the city was if their work was incomplete and the city needed to do an extra inspection, Hall said.

For its part, the city didnt have the staff to enforce its own rules. The Building Department is almost entirely contracted labor. Resolving expired permits wasnt made a priority for more than a year, so the problem continued to grow, Hall said.

As part of the city budget, Public Works officials reported earlier this month they had a backlog of more than 400 expired building permits. Most projects on the list were minor fix-ups for single-family homes like roof replacements, new windows or installing water heaters.

City officials say they are already on top of the problem and have whittled down this number. Over the last three months, Building Department staff have been calling up property owners to warn them their permits were expired. Most, if not all, of the permits have been brought into compliance, Hall said.

Steps were being taken to ensure the problem didnt return during the next economic lull, he said. The city has been implementing a permit-tracking system for the Planning and Building Departments that would alert staff when a project was due to expire. That system would be fully integrated in the coming months, Hall said.

We dont anticipate this happening again, he said. When it gets near for a permit to expire, were on it.

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HMB whittles down permit backlog