Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / Yorkville increases building fees for data centers, looks to hire electrical and mechanical inspectors

Transcript

Yorkville increases building fees for data centers, looks to hire electrical and mechanical inspectors · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Yorkville increases building fees for data centers, looks to hire
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: electrical and mechanical inspectors that i'd written by Joey Weslow.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: This article is being read by an automated voice brought
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to you by Everlett. With several data center developments heading
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: toward Yorkville, the city is increasing inspection fees for large
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: scale developments to cover costs and make sure staffers don't
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: get overwhelmed. City staff explained that in approving new fees
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: two seventy percent higher per new building, the city aim
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to offset increase staffing costs, including new hires, while also
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: staying competitive with other towns trying to attract data center developers.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: In justifying the increases, the city said just one building
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: for the two to twenty eight acre nine building Cyrus
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: one Data Center campus, will require almost three hundred inspections.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: City administrator Bartolson said current staffing was stretched thin with
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the high number of inspections needed for Bright Farms and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the new Costco, which are both smaller in size than
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: just one data center building. The fees are to cover
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: our cost, cover our proposed new staff that would specialize
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in just these developments, and then provide us with the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: ability to maybe expand staff in the future. Christy Barksdell
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Noble Community Development Director said during the February tenth city
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: council meeting the city is looking to hire a full
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: time electrical inspector and a full time mechanical inspector in
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the next few years. According to city documents. Even with
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the fee increases, city staff said the new fees remain
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: slightly below towns looking to attract data centers like Aurora,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Elk Grove Village and Hoffman estates the new fees should
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: cover staffing costs while style keeping fees low enough to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: remain an attractive place to build for developers, and said
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the building permit fee increases approved by city council go
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: from one dollar to five dollars per square foot. There
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: also is a new mechanical, electrical and plumbing review of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: seventy five cents per square foot for a building exceeding
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: two hundred thousand square feet. While these numbers seem low
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: on the surface, the fees quickly add up. Alderman Chris
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Funkhauser said for just one Cyrus One building at two
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: hundred eighty seven thousand square feet, the new fees would
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: generate around one point fifty two million dollars. Before the vote,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Funkhauser questioned whether the new cost justified the means. I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: don't want this to be a revenue stream by any means.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: This needs to be a justified cost, Funkhauser said during
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the meeting. Olson responded that the fee increases match the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: high hourly rates of the consultants the city has seen,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: plus the expanded costs for the new hires. Olson said
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the city has not yet decided what to do if
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the new fees generate surplus funds outside of city staffing
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and hiring costs