Legal & Legislative Committee — 2023-07-13
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Maya Jamaleddine ; John Obremski ; Ryan Williams
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Public Comment
- Ordinances
- ORDNC-2023-2 : Amending Revised Ordinances Article II Chapter 152, section 12, fee for common victualler
- ORDNC-2023-3 : Amending Revised Ordinances of Melrose, Chapter 152, Article II Specific Licenses and Permits, by adding section 25 Fortune Teller License as authorized by MGL Chapter 140 Section 185 I.
- ORDNC-2023-4 : Amending Revised City Ordinance Chapter 24 Departments Article III Inspectional Services Department § 24-34 Fee Schedules and Chapter 56 Officers and Employees Article VI Sealer of Weights and Measures § 56-37 Collection and disposition of fees
- ORDNC-2023-5 : Amending Revised City Ordinance Chapter 119, Section 7, to Implement a new schedule of Fees for Inspections, Permits and other Services.
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● JULY 13, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:15 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Ryan Williams Chair Present John Obremski Vice Chair Absent Christopher Cinella Absent Jack Eccles Present Maya Jamaleddine Late 7:16 PM Jen Grigoraitis President, Ex Oficio Present Non voting members present include: Councilor Karamcheti and Councilor Stewart
ORDNC-2023-2 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Revised Ordinances Article II Chapter 152, section 12, fee for common victualler Ought to Pass City Council
ORDNC-2023-3 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Revised Ordinances of Melrose, Chapter 152, Article II Specific Licenses and Permits, by adding section 25 Fortune Teller License as authorized by MGL Chapter 140 Section 185 I. Ought to Pass City Council
ORDNC-2023-4 Amending Revised Ordinances Amending Revised City Ordinance Chapter 24 Departments Article III Inspectional Services Department § 24-34 Fee Schedules and Chapter 56 Officers and Employees Article VI Sealer of Weights and Measures § 56-37 Collection and disposition of fees Recommend as Amended City Council
ORDNC-2023-5 Amending Revised Ordinances City of Melrose Page 1 7/20/2023 11:24 AM Minutes Legal & Legislative Committee July 13, 2023 Amending Revised City Ordinance Chapter 119, Section 7, to Implement a new schedule of Fees for Inspections, Permits and other Services. Ought to Pass City Council City of Melrose Page 2 7/20/2023 11:24 AM
Transcript
▶ 12:18 Ryan Williams: Second. All right. We have a motion to adjourn made by President Grigoraitis Ida seconded by Council Chetty. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? We adjourned each job. Here we go. Hello, everybody. Today is Thursday, July 13th, 2023, and this is the meeting of the Legal and Legislative Committee of the City Council of Melrose. I'm the chair of the committee, Ryan Williams, and I am joined tonight by voting members, uh, president Jennifer Grigoraitis Attis, councilor Jack Eccles and non-voting members, councilor Manchetti and councilors Rob Stewart. This serves as a quorum for the record, pursuant to current allowances under the Open Meeting Act, enacted under chapter two of the Acts of 2023 and signed into law by Governor
▶ 13:03 Ryan Williams: Healy on March 29th, 2023. This meeting is being broadcasted remotely via the city's Zoom platform, also in accordance with the open meeting while tonight's meeting will be recorded and is being broadcast on TV by our partners at MMT v, as well as live streamed on their website@mmtv3.org. And we thank them for their service. At this time, I'll motion by unanimous consent to open public comment. And I see no objection. So public comment is now open. Uh, do we have anybody? There's no one online at this time. Okay. Since we have no participants in public comment, a motion by unanimous consent to close public comment and seeing no complaints, public comment is now closed. For the record, councilor Jamal Dean just joined us. She's a voting member tonight.
▶ 13:55 Ryan Williams: We have several orders before us tonight. We have three orders before us tonight. The first is Ordinance 2023 dash two, amending revised ordinances, article two, chapter 1 52, section 12, the fee for common TERs. Am I saying this right? TERs, TERs. TERs. Thank you. Um, a motion by unanimous consent to suspend the rules so we can have any members of the administration come before us tonight to discuss this. Seeing no complaints, the rules are suspended. This order relates to clerk's office fees. So just one second. We got a couple, we got a couple to get through. Um, I don't think we have anybody from the administration here tonight to speak to the clerk's fees, so I will just go over them quickly with everybody. Um,
▶ 14:49 Ryan Williams: the memo that was attached from the city clerk, Kristin Foot, who's currently on vacation, says that they have, uh, they're asking us to raise the LER license annually from $75 to $100. And, uh, they proposed the adjustment to this existing fee based on an analysis of peer communities. Um, So what's the will of the, of the committee? Motion to recommend? Second. Okay. We have a motion to recommend made by Councilor Eccles and a second made by Counselor Jamal. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Okay. So that will be made, uh, that'll be recommended to the full counsel. Next up is Ordinance 2023 dash three, amending revised ordinances of Melrose Chapter 1 52, article two specific licenses and permits by adding Section 25
▶ 15:50 Ryan Williams: Fortune Teller license as authorized by MGL Chapter one 40, section 180 5 1. Uh, this is also brought for, brought before us by the city clerk. Couldn't be here tonight. Um, and she is, uh, suggesting that we adopt this portion of Massachusetts General Law, which allows us to license and track fortune tellers in the city of Melrose. I gotta tell you guys that I did not see this one coming, but here we are. All right. What's the will of, what's the, will of the committee on this one? Motion to Recommend. Okay. Second. Thank you very much. Uh, so we have a motion to recommend my counselor, Eccles, seconded by Counselor Jamine. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Okay. That one passes as well. Uh, next up,
▶ 16:47 Ryan Williams: ordinance 2023 dash four amending Revised City Ordinance Chapter 24 departments, articles three, inspection Service department Section 24 through 34 fee schedules and Chapter 56 officers and employed. Article six, sealer of Weights and Measures Section 56 through 37, collection and disposition of fees. And we have someone from the administration. We're still operating under suspension of the rules, so, uh, the Director of Inspection services could please come forward and let us know what this is all about. Well, thank you everybody for giving me the opportunity to, uh, discuss the proposal to change and amend the, uh, fee schedule for the building department and the weights and measures. Um,
▶ 17:47 as I stated in my letter, um, you know, we, we, we typically need to look at these fees every, uh, five to six years just to make sure that they're in line with surrounding communities and industry standards, um, staffing levels. Um, and, um, after of review, um, the last time these fees were updated were May of, uh, 2013. Um, uh, my proposal, I feel is, um, pretty reasonable proposal compared to the other communities. Um, I compared, um, I compared the, uh, the communities I compared, uh, was, uh, were, uh, Winchester Stoneham and, um, Watertown. Um, I know I gave all of you a lot of information, uh, regarding how I came to, um, my, um, my, my, my rates. Um, so, um, there's a lot to digest.
▶ 18:46 I'd rather just dive in and answer any questions that you or, uh, some of the counselors have, uh, regarding, uh, the proposal. Um, but basically if, um, what I'm looking at are to revise the, uh, building permits from, uh, 15, from $12 per thousand to $15 per thousand, I wanted to add a after hours inspections. Um, we currently don't have that. Um, and there it's been, uh, several requests in the past. And, uh, I'm, I'm in other communities that I work for. Um, they've always asked for those. So I've added that, that, uh, to the fee schedule. Um, there's always, there isn't, um, we don't have any mechanism or anything in our ordinances to charge for extensions. Um, I add that fee, um, uh, and, uh, electrical,
▶ 19:43 the electrical permits I took a look at to see if there was any adjustments that needed to be made there. Um, I looked at the solar panels. Uh, I believe that, um, right now we're charging $100 per, uh, flat fee. Um, my proposal is to change that to $200 flat fee. We also have mini splits, heat pumps, uh, a new category that, uh, wasn't around or wasn't prevalent back in 2013 that I wanted to add to the H V A C, um, line item of the electrical permit, uh, which is, um, an increase to, well, not an increase, a new fee of $75 for residential and $100 for commercial. And under the electrical, uh, I wanted to change hot tubs to a $50. Um, I also added a fee here that I don't believe I, um, I put in my memo and, um, I have added it,
▶ 20:49 and I can relay that information later on to the committee. Um, to add water heaters, um, from $30 to $40 for residential and to $60 for commercial plumbing and gas permits. I wanted to remove the language. Um, basically eliminating that, uh, if someone is, um, applying for a permit for gas and, um, plumbing at the same time that they would only be charged one administrative fee. I felt that these permits are separate. Um, our system, um, doesn't have a mechanism to, uh, even separate, uh, to withdraw those fees. And, um, as you know, uh, a lot of time goes into these applications, uh, on their own. Uh, and I felt that, uh, we should be charging individual, uh, $15 administrative fees for, for these, um, for that line item.
▶ 21:47 Um, I also wanted to add residential, a minimum fee for residential that we don't have currently in the gas and plumbing permits of a minimum of $30 for residential and commercial, $75. Um, I feel that it's a reasonable rate, um, for an inspector to go out there and, um, uh, just, uh, to take a look at, um, some of these inspections to recoup funds for, um, for their services. And lastly, was the, uh, water heaters for, uh, plumbing and gas. Um, again, $40 for residential commercial, $60. Uh, in addition to that, uh, the weights and measures, there's a lot of fees on that schedule. I don't want to go through all of them unless there's some specific questions. I think I've highlighted the reasoning behind my proposal. Um,
▶ 22:47 we just don't charge enough to, um, uh, for the services that, that we render. Uh, and they're very modest. Uh, we don't have a lot of inspections on the, for this category as you can see. Um, and I think the, the, the rates that I'm looking at, um, it's a modest increase of 1800 per year for all of these services under that, uh, which measures category. With that, I can take any questions that you may have. I know I, I've given you some, uh, um, details on what, uh, what the changes would, uh, do, uh, as far as increase in revenue. Um, I added, I put some proposal, uh, on there for what, what they would be for the current rate for $14 per thousand for $16 per thousand. But I feel that $15 per thousand is a reasonable rate compared to the other
▶ 23:43 Jen Grigoraitis: communities, uh, around this area. Um, so with that, I can take any questions you may have. Thank you. Any questions from committee members? Councilor Greg? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for being here tonight and for providing so much detailed information. Um, my first question is mostly just procedural. I mean, so what, what's being asked of this group tonight is to motion to recommend amendments to the city code, which aren't articulated in the order itself. So we'd be referring to your memo. So you mentioned there's something that's not in your memo that you want us to consider. I'm not quite sure that we can actually procedurally do that tonight because we don't have something to amend that includes that, um, language.
▶ 24:24 But could you talk a little bit about what's missing that you wanted to have included? Sure. Uh, as part of the package that I sent to the council, there is, uh, the proposed fee schedule changes. That is essentially a copy of, um, the order in our, um, Melrose, uh, zoning ordinance. I, I, uh, and what I did was in that, in that, uh, in those detail, I've crossed out the sections when, which need to be changed. Um, so under the building fees, administrative fees, um, I've changed, uh, to, uh, um, section A building permit fees, subcategory a one of two family construction reconstruction alterations. You can see that I've highlighted, or I've crossed out the $12 per thousand, and I've added in the $15 per thousand costs.
▶ 25:18 Jen Grigoraitis: So I'm not sure if, have you gotten, these are the changes that I'm recommending. Right. Sorry, I see a memo. Maybe I'm missing something else, but I can look, I guess. But I thought you mentioned when you were speaking earlier, there was a change that isn't documented that you wanted us to consider. Well, this is the document. Oh, okay. I, sorry, I misunderstood it. I thought you were saying there was something that isn't in the document that you wanted to talk about tonight. Okay. So after, um, and I'm sorry, you're, you're right. So after I, I've been doing this for several months, so sometimes I add something in and I added it to my memo, but I didn't add it to the fees. Yep. Okay. Um, so one of the items that I caught while reviewing my, uh,
▶ 26:05 communications to the council was that under the electrical section of the fees, I didn't, did not add water heaters. Okay. So under, so in section B of the proposed fee schedule? Yes. Okay. Um, and that would be mine item. It would be line item add water heaters, and $30 to $40. So it would change what the water heaters right now are. And, um, one minute just to find them electric water heaters. Okay. So it's in page four under miscellaneous, and it's letter D as in David. Mm-hmm. There's a lot there, counselor. Um, and under water heaters. Yep. Okay. You can strike the 30 and add residential and commercial. Residential would be $40 and commercial would be $60. Okay. Thank You. And that wasn't under my memo. Okay. But it was under the fees.
▶ 28:07 Jen Grigoraitis: Right. Okay. I think I, for me at least, it's all one document so that the clarification is helpful. Um, and then can you talk a little bit about with the heat pumps, I know that that's new, obviously that technology didn't exist in 2013, but given the fact that we have a net zero goal for the city, that that's something that we, you know, it's a type of, um, technology we'd really like folks to adopt. Is it that we're, what's the driver for putting in a specific permit for that? Is it that we're seeing a ton of them that they're really labor intensive or specialized type of inspection? Well, um, there really isn't a category for the, for, um, heat pumps and mini splits, um, under our ordinances. And that's, uh,
▶ 28:51 more or less a lot of communities. They, they typically want to, uh, because there's no category we don't know how to charge sometimes. So I want it to be specific when we are looking at the schedule to be able to charge for certain, uh, services that we render. And right now, um, central air conditioning, which is one of the categories, it's really, we have both central air conditioning and we have heat pumps now. So I wanted to change that to have a category of H V A C, and I wanted specifically to add something that, um, would be able to be seen by contractors where they could see why they're getting charged for something. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Any other questions?
▶ 29:41 Ryan Williams: Okay. Well, I have some thoughts. Um, it's sort of in line with what councilor, excuse me, president Greg Ratti brought up. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about the solar permitting fee. And you and I talked about this earlier today, Mr. Teleco. So I, you know, where I'm coming from, similar to the net zero commitment for, um, uh, to the discussion around net zero commitments, um, and the impact of permitting costs on many splits and heat pumps. You know, Melrose back in 2017 became a soul smart community, and we were given this innovation award for our, our, uh, low cost of, of permitting solar. And, um, I would like to keep the cost of permitting solar the same as it is now. Right. So, for one reason,
▶ 30:25 Ryan Williams: when I look at the other communities that you've mentioned here, in the order only Stoneham has a solar permit, a separate solar permit, um, fee, and it's only a hundred dollars. Um, and on a kind of policy note, I feel that something like solar, which has a lot of external benefits to the community in terms of helping strengthen the grid, preventing blackouts from, you know, overloads during super hot honey days, which we've super hot sunny days, which we've had quite a few of, that we should keep the solar permit where it's at, um, at a hundred dollars. And, uh, the rest of it, I think you're absolutely correct. It's the responsibility of the department to make sure that it can provide the
▶ 31:09 Ryan Williams: services it needs to. We've all heard that permitting is, has been in the past kind of a bottleneck for people in Melrose. So it's, you know, no question that like, getting the money that we need to do the services that we need to do is correct. I think with this one, uh, with this one charge, since it's already set at a hundred dollars, and that's what pure communities are charging, if anything, um, that, that we should be keeping it there. Um, but I wanted to ask you a follow up question that I didn't get to ask you yesterday or earlier today on the phone. If you could help me understand the process for a person who's permitting a solar installation to make sure that I fully understand this, in my mind,
▶ 31:52 Ryan Williams: when someone calls the bill or a contractor calls the building department and says, we're doing solar in Melrose, they pay the per thousand project fee, right? Whatever that is. They do, they pay a permit fee and a solar fee, electrical permit fee, and a solar fee. Okay. Alright. So it's not like the solar permit fee kind of enc, it doesn't encompass not a package deal, it doesn't encompass other permits. Okay. Okay. That's with every community. So, uh, Stoneham, um, uh, although their rates at are $13 per thousand, they charge for a, um, a plan review fee. So if you took that plan review fee, and a typical installation, let's say it's $25,000, and let me, I, I'm gonna try to do the math in my head,
▶ 32:40 but, um, so if you took, um, um, you know, um, $13 per thousand, $25,000, uh, and then add that a hundred dollars fee to, it ends up being close to, I think it's 4 25, um, on our end with the, um, and that's just for the building permit fee without, you know, um, without charging the electrical fee, uh, that they have, uh, it would be $525 mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. On our end, we're closer with $15 per thousand, $25,000, um, plus a $15 administrative fee. We're, we're at, like, at, uh, three 70. So, um, although you're seeing them at that a hundred dollars, uh, for the electrical fee, there's, there's other fees that are included that associated with that work. Mm-hmm. Regardless of, of what they do. Um, and,
▶ 33:40 uh, you know, some of the fees that I know that I paid in Stoneham that we don't pay here, and I didn't put in my proposal was a dumpster fee Mm. That the board of health ha actually has to issue. And I believe that's $50 for any work that you do in Stoneham. So, um, just to, um, reiterate some of the things you said, I, um, you know, we, I'm glad that you feel that, uh, you know, that, uh, this is our, our responsibility. We need to make sure that these are in line and, um, you know, I based my analysis for these not on whether it's a good thing whether we can pay for it and justify those costs through the inspections. So when I'm looking at solar panels, I say, okay, my electrical inspector spends more time during these installations
▶ 34:31 that he would on any other, uh, typical installation for electrical, even a, a renovation for a kitchen. When he goes in there, he needs to see the meter, he needs to see the, he needs to go up to the roof, make sure the connection's done inside the home. He needs to see that the, uh, panel is, is, uh, properly done. He also needs to see that the, um, um, inverter is probably and, and, uh, installed correctly. So there's, there's a lot involved in those. Um, I know, um, other communities as we discussed, they're looking at it from a kilowatt. Mm-hmm. Uh, where you charge per kilowatt up 5,000 kilowatts is a typical installation of 18 panels, um, in, in Melrose. And typically a hundred dollars, uh,
▶ 35:17 Ryan Williams: anything over that they charge $20 per kilowatt. Um, something will look at on the commercial end. Um, but I felt that that $200 were, was less than other communities, even though you're seeing that a hundred dollars in, in Stoneham. Um, but again, uh, I, this is a proposal. Um, uh, if, if, uh, you know, uh, the committee feels that it's, uh, it's not in line and that, that's, that's quite all right. Well, I, I would say, I wouldn't say that, that the proposal's not in line, right. This particular item, it's a question of how we send the signal to incentivize people to do this thing that we all need to do so badly. Right. Which is to convert our homes into more sustainable and cleaner energy sources.
▶ 36:04 Ryan Williams: Mm-hmm. Um, I am interested, since you brought up commercial Configurations, and I don't want to tackle it tonight because it would be too complicated, but we should put together a proposal for commercial solar installations that would be stuck in here somewhere that addresses all the things you talk about, you know, because certainly if we have a number of large apartment buildings or condo buildings and they want to add solar, I know there's been a few developers who have kind of, you know, talked a lot about their solar ready roofs and things like that. It would be, I think it would be perfectly fine to have a little bit higher fee on the commercial side to, to try and balance some of the, you know,
▶ 36:42 Ryan Williams: some of that revenue out of the, out of the, um, solar side. So, uh, any further questions from the, from the committee? I, so for this, um, I would entertain a motion from a member of the committee if they were so inclined to recommend this order for passage with the following language amendments on section. I'm gonna get there, I'm gonna get there. It's a pretty lengthy schedule. Uh, I got it, I got it, I got it. On section 13 of the new, cause we have the struck out and then the new, um, numbers. So in the new numbers, section 13, miscellaneous under Section G solar panels, I would strike the $200 flat fee and retain the $100 fee for solar panels under Section G. So again, the motion is to recommend this for passage with a language
▶ 37:54 Ryan Williams: adjustment under section 13 G, that the solar panel fee be reduced from $200 to $100. I would make a motion, I think we have to make a motion to amend and then recommend. So I would, I would make that motion to amend section G from $200 to $100. We're looking for a second on that. One Second. Thank you. So we have a motion to amend the order, uh, ordinance 2023 dash four to change section 13 G from the solar panel fee from $200 to $100. Um, all in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes. Um, Make a motion to recommend as amended. I have a motion on the floor made by Councilor Eccles to recommend the most, uh, order as amended. Second. Second by President Gregor Attis. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes as amended. Thank you very much.
▶ 39:09 No Problem. I, um, I will send an, um, uh, amended sheet. Thank you for, Uh, council review, the final Thank you. So we got one more here. Ordinance 2023 dash five amending revised city ordinance chapter one 19, section seven to implement a new schedule for fees for inspections, permits, and other services. And we have Fire Chief Edward Collina here tonight to talk to us. It's worth the Wait, right, everybody? Okay. This is, uh, just, uh, proposal of three, uh, amendments to the current fee structure. CAR UAL is license, um, from $10 to $50. What that entails is the inspector has to go out to the site and conduct, uh, on onsite inspection for any place that, uh, sells, um, food and other commodities. Um,
▶ 40:15 so we just feel that this, this fee of $10 is old and, and, uh, bringing it up to $50 would be in line with all the other types of inspections that we do. The, um, and over the last three years, we've done, uh, approximately 150 Carmen VI show's license licenses, uh, renewals, which is done annually, usually in the fall, I believe. Uh, the next item was the rocket, uh, model model rocket permits. I, I don't think we've had two of those in 10 years. Uh, you just don't see, uh, people doing that anymore. But again, the fee is old and, uh, we just start bringing it up a little bit. Um, may generate a little bit of revenue. And the, the, uh, big one would be the smoke detector, uh, reinspection.
▶ 41:05 The reinspection is the same as the inspection, which is $50. And the same amount of work that goes into processing the permit scheduling, uh, onsite inspection, um, would be, um, would be in line to keep it consistent with the regular permit. Um, over the last, um, We approximately have about 25 to 30 failures of inspections a year on as it pertains to smoke detectors. So it's not going to generate that much more money. But again, the inspectors out there doing, uh, about 500 inspections a year for smoke detectives. Well, I bet you this year will be slow, so, so I'm looking for a passage of that. Thank you. Any questions from committee members? Make a Motion? Comes motion recommend. We have a motion to recommend from Councilor Eccles. Second.