We found this article about Mr. Rosenthal’s philosophy on the Internet and thought you might enjoy reading it:

Interview with Don Rosenthal

The plan is to “Amend Atlanta’s building code so that it responds to advances in building technology to protect the health, safety, and welfare of Atlantans and to safeguard Atlanta’s long term comprehensive competitiveness.”

The City Utility Committee requested a comparison of existing fees with proposed fees, and the justification for the increases.

The attached table provides the comparison.  Please note that the current fees were established in 2005, and have not been increased in five years, despite increased costs for both contracted and self-performed services.

The basic justification for the proposed fee increases is to recover the Department’s costs of providing them.  (The sole exception to this relates to charges to restore services after hours, and on weekends and holidays.  In this case, the fee is a penalty.)

Below are brief descriptions of each fee and the basis of the proposed increase.

There are eight fees discussed herein.  In a separate paper, the Department will address the issue of developer-installed infrastructure (i.e. water mains, fire hydrants and small meters).

Charges to restore service:  This is essentially a penalty fee for requiring service restoration at night, and on weekends and holidays.  It is intended to encourage service restoration during normal work hours, and offset additional costs associated with night and holiday work.

Fee and deposit schedule for water meter plan review and installation:  These costs are the Department’s costs per current installation contracts.

Fee schedule for re-establishing service:   The proposed fee covers the costs associated with office and field work associated with re-establishing an existing residential meter.  Large meter re-establishments are very rare, and will be handled individually.  A new fee schedule is attached.

Fee for water meter relocation:  Because there is not a high demand for this service, it is difficult to establish a fee schedule.  Also, there are many variables that can impact the complexity and cost of meter relocation.  Therefore, it is most practical to establish cost based on individual circumstances.

Fee schedule for water meter abandonment:  This cost is based on crew time to remove water meters of various sizes and vaults based on average length of the job and a fully burdened average labor rate, plus equipment, vehicle, tools and contract-related costs (e.g. re-paving the cut at the main, which was made in order to shut off the valve).

Fee schedule for fire service tap:  These fees vary with size of service and whether it is short side or long side.  The fee is based on contract prices paid by the Department plus 25% to cover Bureau of Operations costs (e.g. tapping the main, excavation, backfill, restoration, equipment, vehicle, materials—tap, sleeve, valve).

Fee schedule for detector check for a fire line:  These fees are based on size of service.  The fee is based on contract prices paid by the Department plus 25% to cover Bureau of Operations costs (e.g. additional excavation, equipment, vehicle, materials—detector check valve, pipe, fittings).

Fee schedule for fire service hydraulic tests:  A fire service hydraulic test is a test of available flow and pressure at a fire hydrant.  These tests are requested by developers, who are planning main extensions, and they need to know available flow and pressure.  On average the Bureau does 250-350 such tests annually.

This fee is based on cost of service: four hours times a fully burdened labor rate plus $50 for materials, equipment, vehicle, etc. (basic O&M costs.)

Unfortunately, computerization has done away with that forever.  Now, best case is typically three weeks and more often four to five.  Bear in mind, there are a number of other metro permit offices that offer similar turnaround times.

Recently the city has given the reviewers ten business days to review all plans.  At first glance, this might seen unreasonable, but when you consider the volume of activity which accompanies the new system, which is redundant and adds a lot of data entry to the process, then it becomes understandable.

Unfortunately, the time spent getting the plans to the reviewer can be from 1 to 10 days.  This is difficult to understand, because this is a simple process.

Our estimate is that the reviewers are doing about five permits a day each.  That would be a snap dealing with paper plans.  But, using dual monitors to do the review is very restrictive and leads to a lot of double checking.  We know – we are doing it that way ourselves.

So, our message to you is – be happy with the turnaround you are now getting, because as volume increases we don’t forecast an improvement, but rather the contrary.

Recently, our clients have experienced very large fees for certain jobs, fees which do not fall in line with the scope of the job. If you do the math, you will find that the valuation for the permits are approximately $34 per square foot. For example, one of my clients had a contract already signed for less than $50,000, and yet the city evaluated his permit at almost $1500. When he protested, he was told there is no other recourse other than getting the Atlanta City Council to revise the ordinance.

The issue here is not the amount of the fee, but the fact that these fee increases are not across the board but appear to be applied randomly at the reviewer’s discretion.

The IBC states that every jurisdiction should have a board of appeals for disputes.  Atlanta does not have such a board.  We have written an ordinance that would create a Board of Appeals and presented it to Michael Julian Bond, but have received no response.  If you would like to see such a board instated, please contact Mr. Bond at mbond@atlantaga.gov and ask him to pursue this ordinance.

Inappropriate fees continue to be an issue at the city.  Contractors are urged to contest these fees, most of which are coming in at about $147 per square foot for an interior alteration to second generation space.

Although this has been brought to the attention of Commissioner Shelby, no resolution has taken place as yet.