| TO: | Honorable Anna Mowery, Chair, House Committee on Land & Resource Management |
| FROM: | John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB2050 by Smith, Wayne (Relating to the time for processing a county building permit.), As Introduced |
The bill would amend the Local Government Code to establish a 45-day deadline for a county to grant or deny a permit application to erect or improve a building or other structure. If a county has been unable to act in this time period, it would be required to provide, within the same 45 days, written notice to the applicant of the reasons for the delay. The county would have 30 days after the applicant receives the notice to grant or deny the permit, otherwise the application would be considered to be granted.
The bill would take effect September 1, 2003 and would apply only to applications submitted on or after that date.
Current law does not provide deadlines for counties to respond to a permit application. A sampling of counties provided input to the Comptroller of Public Accounts for the fiscal impact of this bill.
Johnson County does not issue building permits, so the bill would have no fiscal impact on it. Hays and Liberty Counties already have a shorter turnaround time for issuing permits, so they expect no fiscal impact from this bill. Webb County, however, estimates that complying with the bill would cost the county $115,000 a year. It would need to hire two new employees to meet the deadlines, and it would need to purchase an additional truck to make site visits more quickly than the county normally conducts them because of the vastness of the county. The county also believes that the application deadlines have the potential to allow the construction of additional substandard colonia buildings if the county does not act within the bill's deadlines, which could possibly cause additional health-related expenses to the county in the future.
| Source Agencies: | 304 Comptroller of Public Accounts
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| LBB Staff: | JK, CL, DLBa
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