Winnetka moving to ease permitting process

A proposed ordinance that would make significant changes to the Village of Winnetka’s construction permitting and fees earned the Village Council’s preliminary support this month, but trustees said the ordinance needs changes before a final vote.

In a unanimous voice vote at the council’s most recent regular meeting on Sept. 17, trustees introduced the ordinance, which would extend the deadlines for building permits for those seeking to build new single-family homes and make changes to the fee schedules.

Scott Mangum, the village’s community development director, said that the existing ordinance allows building permits to be issued for 15 months, regardless if it’s for a new home or for a fence or generator.

In 2024, the village updated its fee schedule, according to Mangum, which changed the previous $1.60-per-square-foot rule to the current valuation-based fee of 3% of the construction’s valuation.

“The result of this is that most single-family homes’ permit fees increase significantly,” he said. “Because the extension fee is 50% of the total original permit fee, the higher base fees have also increased the extension fee amounts.”

Staff are proposing changes to the permits and fees:

• Increasing the duration of permits for new single-family residences to 18 months for homes under 15,000 square feet, and 24 months for homes that are more than 15,000 square feet, and

• Changing the permit extension fee to 10% of the base permit fee for each additional three-month extension, with a cap of nine months for extensions.

“In that nine month extension, it would be a potential total of 30% of the base permit fee, whereas currently it’s 50% of the base permit fee,” Mangum said.

He also shared potential positive and negative impacts of such a change. Positives include potentially aligning the permit duration with “the complexity of the project type and reduce administrative burden of processing extension requests.”

On the negative side, Mangum said the changes could potentially reduce the incentives to complete construction “promptly” and reduce the permit extension fee revenue to the village; however, he noted that the village budget does not include permit fee extensions as a revenue source.

Trustees disagree with rebate, want renovations included

During discussions, multiple trustees raised concerns with details in the proposed ordinance.

Trustee Bridget Orsic questioned the need for the larger permits to have a 24-month window, noting that Mangum’s report didn’t identify any neighboring communities that grant that length of time for a permit.

“Why are we going so far out?” she asked. “That’s a very long time, even for a bigger house.”

Mangum explained that Village staff thought that a house larger than 15,000 square feet is almost the size of a commercial space, for which permits are 24 months, “and that those (homes) may take longer to construct. And so that was the idea of having a break point based on the size.”

He also said that since the adoption of the new fee schedules, no residential projects have taken longer than 24 months to complete; though there are three current 15,000-square-foot homes under construction, one of which is reportedly at 22 months.

While trustees ultimately approved the 24-month permit window for larger homes, they did end up removing a proposed rebate that staff had suggested.

Mangum said the rebate, which would have been retroactive to this past Jan. 1, “would result in a refunding of approximately $100,000 in extension fees that were paid this year.”

Trustee Kim Handler said the rebate didn’t make much sense to her.

“I feel that when the permits that were issued in the last nine months were put in place, this was the ordinance that was in place,” she said. “The owners signed contracts with their contractor with a certain time frame, with the understanding of what the process was. I just don’t see a compelling reason to go back and start refunding and retroactively putting something in place if we would agree to do this.”

Orsic agreed with Handler, calling the rebate “a weird thing to do.”

Village Manager Kristin Kazenas explained that the rationale behind the rebate was that staff felt the extension fees could be seen as a penalty, since the Village doesn’t depend on them for revenue.

“And what we were trying to do, understanding that we’re early in this change and the data is a small sample size, is be proactive about this from what we’ve heard from residents who feel like they are not delaying,” she said. “They’re really anxious to get in their homes, and the 50% of the original fee, we have gotten feedback about that. So we were trying to be proactive and recognize that, in this budget year, we had the capacity to address it, just as a timing difference of when the council undertook the review.”

Another issue for trustees was that the proposed ordinance only applies to single-family residential home construction, and not renovation.

Currently, Mangum said permits for both construction and renovation are on the same fee schedule.

Handler said she believes renovations should be included in the ordinance.

“We live in a community where we want to encourage people to preserve and renovate, and often big homes like that, those are major projects,” Handler said. “And I know, in my own neighborhood, there have been five (renovations) in the last three years that have taken two years because renovations actually can take a lot longer than new construction, because you run into issues. Contractors are working with an existing structure that has surprises in it.”

Trustee Scott Myers suggested, and included in his amendment to the preliminary approval, asking staff to research data on renovations and come back, potentially at the council’s next meeting on Oct. 6, with language for the ordinance regarding renovations.

Kazenas said that would be beneficial for staff, as opposed to amending and approving the ordinance on the evening the meeting was held, since that suggestion was only made to staff that night.

Mangum further noted that the Village has separate permits for remodels and additions, which is another data point that staff will need to research.

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