I wish you were so you can find it.

Hey, how are you?

Good look, we almost beat the setup.

What is happening?

Well, not a few.

Not a hands.

If you're here to speak, if anyone from here in the audience is here to speak uh during the public hearing portion, if you wouldn't mind signing that sheet there, so we have your name for the record.

Just right there on the edge of that table.

There's nothing here.

Oh, I was gonna say sorry about that.

Oh this is not what?

No, first one.

Yeah, what you print your name.

I know it doesn't say it lasts for stage permit until it's successor is appointed.

So I feel like I'm in good for a lot.

Unless Adam is there.

Which are calls for hold on.

You won't try that.

You're not removed.

Is Catherine joining?

Just as she said she does.

I just saw it, thank you.

All right.

Given that it's three, I'm gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order.

This is the August 28th uh Board of Business and Neighborhood Services meeting.

My name is Abby Brands.

I'm the director of the Department of Board and Business Neighborhood Services.

Uh board members would like to introduce themselves starting to my right.

Uh Belinda Drake.

Camille Bullunt.

Kate Warpool.

Thank you.

Um got a relatively short agenda, but a lot packed into it today.

Uh with consent from board members, I would like to move um the budget presentation just before the last resolution.

Um because there is content in the budget presentation that is germane to that resolution would be helpful.

Is there a consent from board members?

Consensus.

All right.

First piece of business is to review the minutes from July 24th.

Uh there are any corrections or questions regarding those minutes.

If not, I will entertain a motion to approve the July 24th minutes.

I move we accept the uh July 24th minutes as introduced.

All right, is there a second?

Uh second.

All right.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Look at that.

All right.

First action item is uh C 10021, highweeds and grass liens, Ms.

Harley.

Okay.

So for resolution number 2025, C 1002.

Staff recommends this board authorize the director to place liens upon the properties listed in exhibit A for unpaid highweeds and grass, mowing and abatement costs incurred by the department.

Under chapter 575 of the revised code, BNS is responsible for the inspection, abatement, and enforcement of empire environmental public nuisances.

When a property owner does not correct a violation, the city enlist a contractor to mow the property.

In the event the city's abatement costs are unpaid, the city shall place a lien upon the property.

This high weeds and grass lien certification represents 344 mowing cases with a total amount owed of 175,320.

The cases reflect outstanding fees 30 days past due as of August 28th, 2020 2025.

Alright, before we move on to questions, Catherine, do you want to introduce yourself?

Alright, any questions for Ms.

Carly regarding highweeds and grass liens today.

If not, I will undertain a motion to approve C 10021.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Passes.

Alright, moving on to C 1002, trash liens.

All right.

Staff recommends this board authorize the director to place liens upon the properties listed in exhibit A for unpaid trash, junk, and debris cleanup and abatement costs incurred by the department.

Under chapter 361 of the revised code, BS is responsible for the inspection, abatement, and enforcement of environmental public nuisances.

When a property owner does not correct a violation, the city enlist a contractor to abate the nuisance.

In the event the city's abatement and cleanup costs are unpaid, the city shall place a lien upon the property.

This trash lien certification represents 44 trash violation cases with a total amount owed of 26, 178.97 cents.

The cases reflect outstanding fees 30 days past due as of August 28th, 2025.

Any questions for Carly regarding C 1002?

If not, I will entertain a motion.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Pass C 1002.

Thank you, Carla.

All right, moving on to C 10024 with Miss Jones.

Hello.

Hello.

Staff recommends this board approve and authorize the director to amend the professional services agreement with Christopher B.

Burke Engineering LLC for professional community rating system recertification and flood map engineering services.

To renew the terms of the agreement for three additional years to increase the contract compensation limit from 150,000 to 250,000.

And to update the contract fee schedule for 2027 through 2028.

Yes, absolutely.

So in the course of our work with our floodplain management program, um we go through an annual verification for the community rating system, which is how we get discounts on flood insurance, and we also have a five-year cycle visit.

So this contract supports um preparation activities for those annual uh verifications and the five-year cycle visits, and then additionally covers flood mapping services that we we may need incidentally in the course of the year as we encounter areas that might not be mapped that DNR isn't able to map or someone is asking for permits or for instances in which uh we're looking at letters of map change or something like that, where we may need some engineering consulting.

Any questions for Elena on C 10024?

I move that we accept the resolution as um introduced.

All right, is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor if you signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Thank you, Elena.

All right, and again, we're skipping uh resolution 23 for the moment, so we can give the budget presentation.

As a reminder, uh, by ordinance we provide the budget presentation uh to the board.

It is not uh for a vote for awareness given their um appointments by council members and may roll appointees.

Okay, step one.

I'm gonna figure out the rest of the steps as I go.

So you should have a little drive that pops up on your once it's plugged in.

And then once you click that and run it, and then check the little barcode that's on the table, and the light changes.

Did you tap the flashing white tape?

Okay, so is it red?

No, not yet.

Connecting base unit.

That seems possible.

Click it again.

It usually goes red once it's said ready to share.

Yeah.

All right.

I'm so sorry.

That's what I ran and then said ready to share.

And you are gonna be clicked FA.

Oh yeah.

Technology is great when it was showing.

Okay, cool.

All right, we're good.

All right.

So you guys know I talk very fast, especially when we're going through a big presentation.

So feel free to pause and ask questions or uh tell me slow down.

Uh so always take this opportunity to just remind uh what BNS does, not just you know, permits or code enforcement.

There's a lot of facets of the different uh divisions within our department.

Um we also, while animal care services was peeled off of the organization at the beginning of this year and it became its own organization.

Uh, we've still assisted them with some administrative tasks and things like that, just as they got on their own two feet, um, and we are still very involved in the shelter construction uh for that new property just because we kicked off the project and still hold a lot of those contracts.

Um, the volatility of standing up a new department, let alone uh you know an animal shelter.

Uh, we felt it was best to just remain involved as kind of a steady partner to see the project through.

Uh this is just a quick breakdown because it seems like there's a lot of confusion regularly, uh, especially uh with a lot of our uh counselors from time to time as far as when things come to us versus when they go to the health department.

So just a reminder that we enforce vacant structures, uh health department enforces occupied structures.

That's usually the easiest kind of delineation, although there are some differences for things like zoning enforcement.

That's us enforcing our uh municipal zoning ordinance for occupied properties, residential properties where there's junk trash and debris, that's often the health department because we don't want to, you know, there's a we have to tow a line when it comes to what is trash versus what isn't, and sometimes if it is trash, there's other violations there for the health department to check out.

Um, when it comes to vacant structures with junk trash debris, that's us, uh highweeds and grass, and obviously abandoned inoperable vehicles.

Uh so quick breakdown.

So last year when I came before uh council and this body, we had 70 vacancies.

Uh in January, we had 30, right now we have 18.

I think of that is a big testament to the other chart there, which is the uh negotiations that we just wrapped up late last year that went live at the beginning of this year.

I don't think enough credit goes to AFSME, especially our partners and ASME local 1437 and the fact that they were open to right sizing.

Um, union rates are typically kind of one for all, but we know, especially in BNS that a lot of our union positions aren't all the same.

They require different certifications and different expertise.

Um, and so we felt it was really important that we approach this uh in a more holistic way, looking at all the different um positions, and they supported that.

So we did all of the right sizing between 24 and 25.

That's why you can see that big jump there, and then year over year they have uh a smaller percentage increase.

Uh so that jump uh was as high as 23% for some positions, the average jump was around 13%, and then over the life of the contract, we'll see an average of 24% across the board.

Uh so on the construction and business services side, uh, I won't go too far spend too much time on uh 2024, just highlighting some of the big things that was accomplished.

Excuse me.

In 2025, we were impacted by the State House House Bill 1037, which went into effect in May.

Was targeted at erosion and sediment control, especially the regulations that local units can enforce around those measures.

And so basically what it resulted in is that we no longer permit drainage permits under an acre of disturbed land.

1005 will go into effect in January 26th, and that is related to private plan review.

So it allows that an applicant for a class two or residential structure can seek out a private provider to do the whole plan review.

They kick it over to us.

We have a very short time before we can kick it back, and then they can also conduct their own private inspections.

We are having ongoing conversations with the bill author.

There are other states that have put this into effect, and we prefer some of those carve outs in other states as far as keep making sure we can hold these private providers accountable and that they're building these structures safely.

So I'm confident in the conversations we've had so far that those will continue.

Earlier this year we rolled out bookings, which is a scheduling app.

So all of our permit reviewers now, when you receive a response from them saying, you know, we need revisions from you, there's a link that you can click to schedule a 30-minute appointment with that person.

We've instructed all of our folks to just go ahead and reach out and call, and I think nine times out of ten, they've been able to uh avoid a meeting and just quickly resolve what the person is asking over the phone.

We've improved our coordination between DPW and DMD, and that will continue.

Um there you know have been hiccups with things like variances as far as like tossing things over the fence and what that looks like in the communication, uh making sure that we're able to communicate to permit applicants where their permit is.

Uh, same things with bonds when it comes back to developers needing to close things out.

IEDI, so that's the new develop Indy.

We've been coordinating with them and uh some of their ad hoc board uh members.

Uh we've been having meetings regarding permitting processes and zoning processes and how we can streamline those, and their expertise has been really helpful and just that kind of real world feedback.

And finally, at the special event ordinance, uh, it was established in anticipation of the Super Bowl.

It's been really great.

Uh, obviously, we don't want to do anything that uh would threaten Indianapolis being the best city to host a major event in the world.

Uh but because it is outdated, there are things that you know IFD, IEPD, DPW, and even BNS would just like to discuss with it.

So we have uh some of those things drafted.

We are about to kick off just kind of some meetings with all of the RPers in that space, as well as downtown Indy and some of those other stakeholders, uh, and we'll be bringing some uh ordinance changes uh before the end of the year to council.

Over on the right there, quickly, just uh some quick stats.

We're on par with where we were last year as far as uh permits volume.

All permits are happening around uh or are ready to issue around a little over six days.

That is heavily skewed because we have a lot of like lower review permits.

So we pull out development permits, which is specifically drainage, ILPs, and structurals.

That's 13 days.

Um I will tell you that number has gone down in part because of 1037.

We had to pause and cancel a lot of the permits that we were working on simply because we no longer had the authority to issue them.

Um, and then looking at residential and non-residential drainage, just because I know that's a topic that comes up frequently.

We pulled the data, and 99% of the residential drainage permits that have been applied for year to date, have either been issued, uh canceled because of 1037 or are waiting on the applicant.

For permits are with our department.

And I will tell you this was also put together last Monday, so I would say that those numbers have probably changed slightly.

Uh on the non-residential side, uh, 94% uh have been issued, canceled, or waiting on the applicant, and 13 permits are with us.

Uh on the uh property land use services side, so neighborhood cleanups, we had one this morning.

Uh it was fantastic.

We've picked up 23 tons of litter so far year to date.

Uh, just an illegal dumping abatement alone, that's not the neighborhood cleanups, but the broader program we've removed 275 tons of trash to date.

Uh illegal dumping assistance.

So, those of you know we have uh an illegal dumping assistance program.

So if you are somebody where someone has legally dumped on your property, we don't want to victimize you twice.

We have a program where you can sign an affidavit, we send our vendor out, but we eat the cost, and so year to date we've had 62 of those.

Um, and then uh 975 repair cases were opened in 2024.

Uh, year to date, we've opened over 700.

I don't want you to take that number and extrapolate, that means that we're we'll open 1500 by the end of the year because some of those are already closed.

Uh I just wanted to highlight like where we are with that program.

So demolition program.

So in 2024, council infused an additional $3 million into our demolition fund, which was incredible because we usually only are able to budget about a million, and there's obviously a much larger need in Indianapolis.

54 structures were bid in 2024 after we we received that investment.

100 structures will be bid by the end of this year, just to show you like how that money can be put to work.

79 completed demolitions, 49 of those were last year, 38 so far a year to date.

This year, there's approximately 110 structures in the backlog.

That sounds like a lot.

I think at the beginning of this administration, there were 500 in the backlog.

The most important part is that second second sentence there, none at risk of expiration.

Because we've had such a robust backlog, we have often had to focus on the cases that were getting ready to expire versus maybe those that were more necessary to focus on.

And so now that we're caught up, I think the oldest affirmed date in the backlog is like April 24.

So that's really great.

And then two big demolitions down there, just to touch on town and terrace, obviously, on the far east side.

That's been a kind of focal point of this administration, and it is in the process of being totally demolished.

It should be completely raised, I think, by the end of September, early fall.

And then Roselon is an apartment complex on like 38th and Emerson, a very large abandoned comp uh complex that we demoed at the beginning of this year.

Continuous vacancy program.

So in looking at ways that we can continue to address glight in our department.

One of the things that we discovered was in state statute we are allowed to establish a continuous vacancy program.

And so what this does is it looks at properties that have been continuously vacant for over 90 days and allows us to apply an extra layer of enforcement.

We're taking that a step further and are actually increasing the threshold to be not just 90 days but also three consecutive years of repair orders as well.

So that means these properties have sat vacant for six years.

They are still in a strong state of disrepair, and we will now be able to add an extra layer of enforcement to those to hopefully convince these property owners to fix up these properties, sell these properties, and just be good stewards in our community to hopefully reduce blight in these areas.

And that map just kind of gives an idea of where a lot of those eligible properties will be.

A couple IT updates.

So road closure viewer, we've got a little QR code there.

If you want to check it out, it essentially visualizes all of the closures currently happening in Marion County.

We just got extra funding through ISA to do a phase two development of this.

So we'll be building out the right-of-way permit application, so that means we'll be capturing that data actually geometrically, which means like the actual lane of the road versus the parcel next to it, which is a big deal.

We'll also be building out a public portal since we have so many hooks into our system, being able to use this as more of a front end.

So if you're searching for something, you can search it through this more visual tool than having to go to ACA.

Digital license renewal, all of our licenses were built into the permitting module, not the license module back in the day, and so we've been working on transferring all those over to the licensing module.

That will allow for digital renewal, which is a big deal because that doesn't happen currently.

Um that should be the first phase of that should be wrapped up before the end of this year.

Website overhaul, we've been looking at our content and trying to figure out a better way to meet people where they are because we know there's a huge gap, especially when it comes to residential projects and understanding what we do and why we're doing it, what our processes are.

And so our chief communications officer has been looking over all of the content in partnership with our leadership team to try to better shape it, not just structurally, but even the content itself so folks understand what we're trying to communicate.

Uh and then legislative development, as I mentioned with 1005, that forces up to stuff, excuse me, forces us to create an entirely new permitting process for those permit types.

So that will be a big development focus at the end of the year.

Allie, someone spent a ton of time on this.

Uh, we created the alley program to help try to address a legal dumping.

We are in phase two, phase one wrapped up uh earlier this year.

We should have uh our I think um notifications out here soon.

We'll have uh pre-bid and uh bids open through September, hoping to start construction uh like we did last time before the end of the year and asphalt plants close and all that jazz.

All right.

Uh moving into uh the budget proposal, which kind of helps offset uh Jacob's point in this.

So just a quick overview, and this also obviously like feeds into uh C 1023 as well, just some background information.

So fees and penalties, what we're discussing broadly hasn't been touched since 1988 or 2010, except for a few tweaks, which I'll mention here, or I'll mention as we go.

In 2024, we had Baker Tilly conduct a rate and fee analysis, and what this was designed to do was look at our staff output.

It was it was not a hey, tell us what we should charge.

It was tell us what how much time and energy does it go into issuing a permit or and conducting an inspection or things like that, just so we can set a baseline for what is the true output of our business.

We also looked at uh peer jurisdictions to kind of help with some of those estimations to understand where should we be charging in the permit kind of range to make sure that we're being competitive in the market in the metro market.

Um I think it's important to point out that uh this proposal does not change every fee or penalty.

There are things like craft permits, like electrical permits and HVAC permits and things like that.

We could have just slapped a 40 dollar application fee on that because they don't have an application fee today, and we chose not to do that because that we're not changing the review at all.

It's the output is still the same, it's a very low uh low-level like review permit, and so just tacking 40 dollars onto it.

That wasn't the point of this.

So I'll say that in a second.

Uh, we're also as part of the ordinance package that's going before council, we're removing some unnecessary permitting processes, so things like uh roofing, for example, like we have these notification permits where you send something in, you don't pay anything, just telling us by ordinance, you know, I have to tell you guys I'm doing this project.

We don't look at it, an office assistant uploads it in the system a few weeks later.

Like, why are we asking people to go through this process?

It doesn't make sense.

So removing things that have just kind of existed because they've existed for the sake of bureaucracy or maybe had more of a purpose at some point but don't as much anymore.

Uh we've also codified some additional exemptions that the state has recognized that maybe have lived in policies previously, but not actually an ordinance.

So making sure those making sure those are establish an ordinance.

And the final point I'll make here is like the idea of all of this, of all of it, is what's at the top.

It is balancing our budget.

Our revenue has not met our expenses by and large, because look at those dates, right?

Like it's been 15 years since we've addressed these, which is very unfortunate.

I don't think anyone wants to be in the position of having to raise fees.

Um, but what it comes down to is the fact that we are we are collecting 2010 revenue and paying 2025 bills, whether that's the salaries we pay, whether that's the contracts we have, um, and so at a time when the overall city county is facing a lot of budget um shortfalls, especially with state legislature and things like that, uh, it is of the utmost importance that we get our house for.

So, just a quick overview of the approval process.

Uh there's a few groups here.

So, group one, those are zoning violations, those go just to council, so we won't be discussing those today.

But just as a heads up that those are additional ones.

Gosh, excuse me.

Uh, group two is right of way, encroachment drainage, um, some flood things and unsafe building administrative fees, um, those are given a regulated authority by ordinance to the board.

Um, and they are they don't live in ordinance otherwise.

So once the board approves these, they will be live in our uh fee schedule beginning January 1st, 2026, and they will they do not need to be codified in ordinance.

Uh group three is kind of a mix of those first two.

So these are fees that uh can be regulated by the board.

The board is empowered to regulate these fees.

Uh, however, at some point they were also codified in ordinance.

So that means we'll be voting on them today, uh, but they still have to go before council for final codification.

Um, and then those dates are down there.

We introduced our budget on the 18th, um, including this proposal.

We tabled it knowing that we were meeting as a board 28th is today, and then we'll be going back to council on the 23rd for review and analysis and the vote for proposal 239.

All right, that is very tiny, but I think everybody should have it kind of in front of them.

So, but we're looking at, so I skipped group one, right?

Because those are the zoning violations that are going just to the board.

Um I think all of you have seen a copy of those just for awareness.

So moving in, I should have had this in front of me, I apologize to right-of-way fees.

So you can see there's a kind of breakdown of uh the Baker Tilly average department costs, it's pretty straightforward.

This was one of the areas that Baker Tilly uh had touched on in the fact that like the fee itself isn't necessarily the work, the output that uh that is necessary for the work.

This fee also provides some level of insurance to protect the asset that is the right-of-way.

And so that is what is reflected here with the proposed new fees.

We've kept the uh carve outs for things like regional center to make sure that work that is occurring in those very uh congested areas are being thoughtful.

Um, and then we are trying to attempting to do a carve out for excavation that's in the regional center as well.

Um we have had a significant issue with uh cutting into roads that are still under warranty, so potentially they've you know, construction ended just a little bit ago.

We opened up the road as the city, cars are now driving on it, and then all of a sudden there is a cut into it to access the utility, and that cut uh usually has flowable fill or something that is not the same grade as the street, and there's not much we can do about it, right?

Because there is a warranty with the vendor who did the road, but this isn't a reflection of their work.

This isn't shoddy workmanship, this is someone else cutting into it.

Um, and so having these extra funds allow us to kind of maintain an insurance policy for DPW so that if they begin doing more of these fixes themselves, potentially there's a funding source for them to tap into.

Um, it also is hopefully a deterrent to be quite honest.

Um you know, I know DPW communicates a lot of their projects years in advance, they have a five-year capital plan.

Um, and so there isn't any reason why we can't be working together to try to mitigate uh cuts into these very, very young roads.

And then moving down, uh encroachments.

So we have had one fee, it's been that 360 for encroachment of any kind, and there's so many different kinds.

Um we want to uh slightly increase it.

So for residential, uh what's not reflected here is those numbers are tied to years, so that residential would be every 20 years.

Um, and those are for things like a shed that's near the that's like next to the monon, that kind of thing.

Uh when we move on to non-residential, those are signs attached to buildings, those are every five years, I want to say it's in the resolution.

Uh, and then sidewalk cafes, that is essentially the city subsidizing the right-of-way to these businesses, and it has often been 360 once.

Sometimes those restaurants close and they leave the the you know sidewalk in a state of disarray, so this would allow potentially some extra funding for DPW to return that right-of-way to grade if that's the case.

Excuse me, that's every five years.

And then non-residential installation, these are things like vaults and very significant installations in the right-of-way.

Um, and then finally, residential parking permit.

This is specific to DPW's parking permit program.

So if you are someone who uh lives in the city and you don't have a garage and you don't have a driveway, you don't have a parking pad, and your only way to park is to park on the right-of-way, you can go to DPW, they will codify it in ordinance to allow you to have a parking permit, but we facilitate all the administrative work.

Um, so we're setting just the application fee rate there.

Still on group two, we have a legal dumping.

So right now, this is not a trash case, like we were mentioning earlier with the trash cleanup.

This is when we've caught someone doing that illegal dumping act and we're able to take them to court.

Right now, the minimum threshold is $500.

We want to increase that minimum threshold to a thousand dollars.

The next line, administrative fees for demolitions.

Um, don't are sometimes a year-long project that require a ton of administrative work.

Um, we currently only issue one uh admin fee, and it's at the end of the process.

Uh, what we are uh proposing here is uh multiple fees that could be assessed throughout the process, and obviously, you know, we know that sometimes once a demolition or once a property is in a demolition bid package, sometimes that incentivizes the owner to demolish it themselves because they don't want to have to pay the city to do it, and so maybe they're only assessed that one admin fee, and then the case moves on because they demo it themselves.

Uh, vacant board order is easy uh for whatever reason, all of our other um admin fees in this area were bumped to 288 a long time ago, and uh for whatever reason this one stayed at 56.

So we're just bringing it up to match the other ones.

Uh moving on to drainage plan review.

Um, we have here uh an increase as far as the three-hour threshold and per hour after uh minimal in nature, especially compared to what it looks like with the uh average department costs accelerated.

Excuse me, we'll talk about here in a second when we talk about the proposal.

Obviously, these everything we're proposing that is part of the ordinance package had to be proposed early on so that we could hit the filing dates with council.

And so we knew that there would be ongoing conversations, both with counselors and with board members.

And so we've been having those conversations and addressing a lot of their concerns, and accelerated is one that's come up several times just because there's a lot of confusion around what it is.

And so we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get into the proposal.

And then finally, there is not an application or a fee that is assessed with a drainage permit today.

It is simply, or there is an application fee, I'm sorry, it's 32, but right now with a structural permit, let's say, you pay the upfront cost for plan review, and that offsets those costs for plan review.

And then to have the permit released to you, you pay the structural fee, and that offsets the cost of those inspections.

There is no follow-up fee for drainage right now, which means there's no additional funding for inspections or that additional administrative work.

So we are only collecting at this point for that plan review piece, but not for any of the other pieces of work that this team does.

Group three, building inspections.

So the Baker Tilly study kind of had a range here, and I think that's understandable given that inspections can vary given what the structure is, what type of inspection it is.

Is it a hotel?

Is it a strip mall?

Is it a home?

And so we just wanted to address a few of these different fees here.

So for one, we would like to introduce a reinspection fee.

All of our peer jurisdictions do this today.

It essentially incentivizes people to, when they schedule inspection, have those things ready to go.

Many of our peers, if they have to come back out, they're charging a fee to come back out for that time and effort and scheduling, and the fact that that's another inspection that they're not able to get to because they're coming out to another one.

We do not, we come out for free today.

Uh, and so just trying to propose something that aligns us with our peers.

I'm hopeful, you know, the idea isn't to uh collect $175 with every single project.

The idea is that this serves as a deterrent, so hopefully we are able to just do inspections as they're called in on schedule.

The next four items there are accelerated inspections.

We are not touching class two or residential.

Uh, what is in that current column will remain the current cost for any type of uh residential accelerated inspection, but what is proposed there would be an increase specific to commercial accelerated and uh accelerated inspections, excuse me.

What we've found is that these are often uh these rates are being used as a cost of business.

Um, and we make a point, especially with our larger commercial projects to make sure that the building inspector is involved, that the contractor knows who that is.

In some cases, depending on the size of the project, they may know who the supervisor is, so they can contact anyone at any time.

And so it's really important that we try to stay on these schedules versus having these kind of emergency accelerated things happen because that's pulling us away from other inspections that's disrupting the work.

And when you have a relatively low fee that people can just pay as the cost of doing business, you can see why there would be an uptick in that because they can just have an inspection whenever they're ready.

So, similar to that uh first fee, this kind of helps serve hopefully as a deterrent.

Um administrative fee going up slightly just to help address with inflation, and then the final two there's stop work or a violation.

So, right now we do not have a violation associated with violating a stop work order, and it is not uncommon for someone to receive a stop work order, they get the piece of paper in their window, and then they look over the shoulder and they say, the city's not coming back.

I can go back to doing this work.

Uh, and you know, a neighbor who called us out initially calls us out again, and we come out and we see they're still doing the work.

We don't really have a penalty to assess at this time, and so we are proposing something because that is a relatively it's one thing to do work and not know that you need a permit.

It's another thing, like once we've told you, hey, you need a permit, and you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna do it anyways.

So when we get into permitting, um, I these are just examples that I wanted to highlight.

So all of our fees uh or a lot of our fees are based on formulas based on square footage.

I think it can be kind of difficult to look at what that formula is and be able to visualize like what that means in reality.

So these are just a couple examples here.

If we're looking at a 2500 square foot new residential build, you're gonna have a structural plan review fee and then a structural fee for that to be released.

That plan review fee and that structural fee comes to about $400 a day.

With the form with the formula increases, um, you can see uh the structural fee goes up significantly.

The plan review fee does not go up uh terribly, but that truly will help offset all of these inspection costs and the administrative cost of these work of this work.

You can also see there compared to our peers, that I think it's 1,050 is still significantly cheaper.

If you were building that 2500 square foot house in Carmel, it would be $6,000.

If you were building it in Fisher's, it would be almost $5,000 in Noblesville over $5,000, and in Greenwood almost $2,000.

Similar example, when we look at the commercial rates and how we're changing them, a $25,000 square foot new commercial build.

Plan review.

So in 2018, there was a decision made that was we're going to remove plan review fees.

But what I think ultimately happened was that they were just buried in the structural fee.

I don't think that's transparent.

And I'd much rather just be more up front and pull it back out.

And the reason for that is also these projects and permits aren't always issued, right?

You know, things change, funding changes, contractors change.

And so if I've done multiple rounds of plan review, and that permit is never assessed, I'm never assessing that structural fee.

And so I get no payment whatsoever for any of the work that's done.

So this would ensure that there is at least some payment put forward to the team.

Again, when you look at our peers, uh, still cheaper.

I was not able to find uh the specific impact fees for Fishers and Noblesville, but I know those are over a thousand dollars based on the conversations I've had.

I just didn't want to you know put a proposed number on there without having knowing for sure.

And this is just a little bit more detail.

It's in the proposal as far as uh what we're changing here, or what we're proposing to change here, I should say.

So that residential or non-residential, I'm sorry, commercial review fee is there in that second row.

At the bottom, we've had a lot of conversations about accelerated review.

I think it's the um the feeling of this board that there needs to be a lot more conversation about it.

And so we'll we'll talk about that when we discuss the proposal.

Um I think we're all open to having broader conversations and a better definition about what accelerated looks like.

Are there any questions about this table before I move on?

All right.

So first table is plan review.

This is uh the resident, or this is the structural fee, so that's second fee that's assessed.

I think one important thing to point out here, uh, second from the bottom is uh the remodel tenant finish.

So right now, if you're doing a small remodel, you are paying the same initial cost that someone who's doing a new build is paying.

And that's not fair.

Like if you're a like a small grocery store and you need to put an event hood or something along those lines, you shouldn't be paying the same starting rate as someone who's building a new structure.

So we have pulled that out.

That used to be all kind of one fee that started at the same rate, and now it will be for new primary commercial structures or additions, um set rate or one formula, and then remodel and tenant finish will now be its own separate rate with an additional tier to make sure that our small businesses aren't having to pay those higher costs.

All right.

So just to summarize, I'm sorry, I'm glad Jacob's about to start speaking so I can shug a bunch of water.

Um we have tried to be as thoughtful as possible.

We know that fee increases aren't popular.

Um it's just an unfortunate reality of having to address what has been unfortunately gone unaddressed for so many years.

Um we have to close the budget gap when it comes to our expenses and our revenue.

We are not changing every fee and penalty.

We've tried to be very thoughtful about what makes sense as far as what we need to change.

We're doing our best to align with our peers because we want to make sure that we still remain competitive in the metro area.

The number one goal of these changes is to uh match our expense to our revenue.

Um, if we are able to collect more than we've um budgeted for expenses, um, it's my hope that that is invested into staff.

I mean, obviously, we've seen when we invest in our staff, our vacancy rate goes down.

We have more individuals to provide these services to review permits, things like that.

Um, investing in our technology.

I think again, like when you saw some of the investments that we've made in partnership with ISA, I think we're trying to do everything we can to meet people where we are where they are and be more user-friendly, and I'd love to continue that further.

And then looking at third-party resources, whether that's uh greater investments in those third-party vendors and having more resources or potentially that's uh moving some of those things in-house back in-house and having that extra funding to do so.

With that, I think it's Jacob's turn.

Thank you.

As Director Brand stated, BNS is taking steps to modernize our fee schedule with the goal of stabilizing the department's revenues.

That said, we approached the preparation of this budget with careful discipline and responsibility, and we're now proposing a budget that keeps expenses flat for 2026 until such time that those revenue increases from fee updates are realized.

The operating budget we're putting forward today reflects an overall slight decrease of roughly half a million dollars for 2026, which can be attributed to a reduction in our IT service charges from our internal partner, ISA.

The end result is a balanced fiscally responsible budget that ensures the continuity of quality services delivered to the community.

Character one represents the department's personnel services.

There's some accounting shifts and strategic moves between divisions built into this character one budget, which will enable BNS to support the wage increases from the new collective bargaining agreement.

The net change to the 2026 character one budget is a $36,000 decrease, representative of a decrease in budgeted workers' comp expenses attributable to ACS splitting off from BNS.

There's a small reduction to our office operating repair, maintenance, and other supplies budget.

The character three budget covers operational third-party and contracted services, including demolition, highweeds and grass mowing, illegal dumping abatement, and structural plan review services, among other services.

The over $500,000 net reduction represented here is somewhat misleading in that it stems from savings within our controlled character three ISA computer and phone service charges.

Yeah, charges.

ISA has restructured their chargeback model as it relates to overhead and service charges, and BNS is one of the agencies that will see a reduction in charges within their new model.

The net reduction carries within it an over 150,000 increase to the department's uncontrolled character three budget, which is where BNS funds the types of direct services that are most felt and seen within the community.

The big picture here is that the overall reduction to BNS character three budget for 2026 will have no impact on the frequency or quality of services BNS provides to the city county.

BNS tracks XPE utilization in accordance with the programs and goals established by the Office of Minority and Women Business Development.

We aim to achieve 15% minority-owned business utilization, 8% women-owned business utilization, 3% veteran-owned business utilization, and 1% disabled owner business utilization.

BNS internally seeks to achieve at least 30% combined XPE utilization on an annual basis.

And from 2017 through 2024, we're averaging 30.4% XPE utilization per year, while also slightly exceeding each of the goals for MBE, WBE, and VBE classifications.

BNS total XP utilization rate for the 2024 fiscal year was 33%.

Oh sorry, not that 2025's utilization data shows we're off to a good start, with plenty of opportunity remaining to make up ground on our current year MBE utilization rate, which is not currently where we hope it to be by the end of the year.

Between um our unsafe building boarding, our highweeds and grass mowing and abatement, our plan review, um contracted plan review services, and procurement of various office supplies.

We still have plenty of time remaining to uh make up ground in that specific area.

Um I intend to return to this board with additional reporting on 2025's XB utilization successes and challenges, as well as a larger update on the status of XB utilization at the animal shelter construction project, which is broken out separately due to project funding sources and which is currently in the final stages of bidding out furniture fixtures and equipment before its anticipated opening in 2026.

There are no proposed changes to our character four budget, uh, which is for vehicles and capital equipment.

And we are uh anticipating a slight increase to our internal services chargeback budget.

This is where we fund the services that uh BNS receives through the Mayor's Action Center, Office of Corporation Council, and Fleet Services.

Yay!

Thank you.

All right.

Uh any questions for me or Jacob, uh, especially items that are not about to be discussed in two in the next resolution.

I know you guys have already gotten some pieces of these, so understandable.

All right.

Thank you, Jacob.

Here you call you.

You'd mean so you guys have two in front of you.

You have the one that was in the original stack that's the original, and then the one that was separate uh so should I be looking at both?

Just this one.

Look at this one.

Okay.

One of those seconds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, it's done.

There aren't like major changes, so it's not gonna be a good thing.

Eva is here to talk about C 1023.

So what we intend on doing, she will give uh kind of a quick overview.

Uh we will talk about the proposed amendments that have been discussed uh with board members and with counselors.

We'll then open up uh for the public hearing portion uh and then have any other additional discussion and vote.

Right.

All right, so with that, Eva.

All right, good afternoon, board members.

I'm here to present resolution 2025 C10023, which adopts changes to the fees and penalties assessed by the Department of Business Neighborhood Services.

Uh Director Brands just went through like the presentation explaining the why, what and how of the changes and uh those being proposed, including those that are being considered by the city county council to be adopted into ordinance.

Um this department has the ability to set certain fees and regulations at the board level, and this resolution covers uh those fees and any that are included both in ordinance and uh set by this board as is typical with this process and to be expected for bigger proposals that are introduced by boards and different uh council members, um including departments and things of that nature.

Um, there's been many more conversations that have happened since the proposal has been introduced by you all amongst each other, amongst yourselves, and then with council members as well.

And there as a result of those conversations, there are two changes and one clarification that are before you in the updated amended resolution.

And I'll go ahead and walk through what that amendment includes.

The uh first change is to strike through the plan review commercial accelerated fee that is in the proposal.

We are planning on coming back to the board before the end of the year uh to set this fee because it's tied to our third-party reviewer contracts, and we would like to streamline the process to better align with our contracting process as a part of this as well.

Um, the structural review fees for commercial are also set in ordinance, and it is our goal in an effort to streamline that process to remove um that fee from ordinance since it's difficult to negotiate different service contracts through uh fees that are codified into law.

Um as we know service contracts can change very greatly even month to month.

So it's not our case, but it happens in the private sector pretty frequently.

Um the second group of changes is the uh amendment to the fees for the accelerated inspection per class one aka commercial structures, and instead of just the flat fee that was um on the screen before you just now we are building an approach to add um a fee for hourly um for more complex structures that take a little bit more time.

Um most commercial inspections are completed in about two hours, but there are some projects that are just much larger and take much more time to complete.

Um, an example of this is a hotel that needed to reopen and have all their rooms re-inspected before the Taylor Swift concert last year.

Um so we had to scramble a bunch of team members together at the last minute to get that done ahead of time.

Uh so in that section of the proposal um on attachment A, uh, you'll see the uh first two-hour fee breakdown, and then for the new hourly uh fee that's after those first two hours is an additional 250 per hour for same day, 150 per hour for next day or next day at a scheduled time, and 250 per hour for weekday after 430 p.m.

or over the weekend.

And then the final change that's in the amendment uh in front of you is uh just to conform the body of the resolution to that of the council resolution to make sure that the effective date is the same, so go goes into effect on January 1 of 2026.

Yeah, that was not included previously.

We didn't contemplate an effective date in the resolution, but that was always the intention.

And then with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

One thing I'll add, um, and this is my mistake, Eva.

So we kept the plan review uh for structural and struck it out so you can see that we also removed or I'm sorry, the accelerated.

We also removed the drainage accelerated because that's also gonna be part of that conversation, but because that's not an ordinance that was just removed from the agenda, it wasn't struck up.

So that's my mistake.

Got it, yeah.

Very clear.

Okay.

Um any questions about the amendments.

We'll vote on the amendments first and then we'll do public.

If none, uh, I will entertain a motion to amend resolution 2025 C1002.

So is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All right.

So the resolution is amended.

Uh we will move on to the uh public hearing portion.

I don't have the council spiel in front of me, so I I can't uh repeat that verbatim.

But what I will say is uh public hearing is the opportunity for the public to be able to share uh how they feel about any particular type of resolution or proposal.

Uh they are capped at two minutes to allow opportunities for anyone else to speak.

Uh they have to be germane to the proposal that is being um discussed and obviously polite and you know real foul language, things like that.

All right, so uh I don't have the list, thank you, Jessica.

Should have just snagged it when I was up for IT duty.

Oh, I'm gonna mess up this last name.

I'm so sorry.

Uh Jean?

Yes.

All right, well just I'll just say Gene.

I won't.

If you wouldn't mind, if you could step up to uh just the edge of the railing there that Mike will pick you up.

And if you would uh actually you can stand right there if you'd like, ma'am, because there's a mic right there too.

Have to use if you wouldn't mind stating your name, uh, and then I will start the timer for you.

Okay, so you're perfect.

Um I am actually against all of the right increases um in terms of residential updating.

It adversely affects the lower income areas the most because they're the people who want to fix up anything you need to do it, and when you do it, you get taxed more anyway.

Um and then if we go to the high weeds and grass, I easy way cut the nut the personnel, sell a bunch of those little cars.

There's a whole parking lot of acres of little city cars.

Um there's money there.

Um they need to focus on real problems, not it turns neighbor against neighbor, not to say okay, the plantain heads came up overnight and the fox tailgrass, and you just mowed two days before, and they're by um I know um, and with zoning, there's not there's no ability to actually for these people who go out and do this to think and what is real, what is the real problem?

Um I know of a case of an old retired army veteran in Mars Hill just doing some small engine repair out of his garage.

He was a help to the community, but oh, he wasn't allowed to do it because of zoning.

There's with these rules that are in force, they're not done with the ability to for people to who are doing it to think and to think what is the real problem.

And yes, there are some problems.

There's some places where there are commercial vehicles hanging out of the driveway onto the across the sidewalks onto the street.

Yeah, there are some places where there's some real problems, but they don't need 20,000 people going along looking at it.

They probably need six to ten employees next.

And if you look at what the fees are, it's mostly administrative.

I saw one little duplex property.

Um the total area for one half of it would be this size, so those two of those, but there were two fines there.

Uh there were two young man mowing, they were getting 25 dollars each to do it, just a little bit.

Their boss who had the contract with the city, he was getting 75.

300 and plus dollars was a 400 and plus administrative fee.

So there's plenty of fees out there for any little thing they do, and so I just don't think there needs to be any increase in any of these fees for this.

They need to cut their um the numbers of people, they need to actually I don't know how you can if you've got these rules, but there needs to be reason put into the enforcements, and they have to be looking for real problems.

Thank you, Jean.

Appreciate your time.

No one else was signed up.

Is there anybody else in the audience who wishes to speak?

All right.

All right.

Any questions from board members?

Oh, yeah, they'll get the cruise anyway.

We don't we don't vote today.

can if you've got these rules but there needs to be reason put into the enforcements and they have to be looking for real problems thank you Jean appreciate your time no one else was signed up is there anybody else in the audience who wishes to speak all right all right any questions from board members oh yeah they'll get the increase anyway we don't we don't vote today or do we vote we vote today vote yeah any questions on what has been proposed or the amendments or anything none is there a motion to approve C10023 I have a motion um I think our I uh brought it up in our last meeting about um some sort of communication plan to uh let neighbors and constituents know about the changes yeah um are we still working towards that absolutely yeah the idea I mean obviously setting something for January 1 is helpful just from a calendar perspective but it also gives us time to communicate and make sure everybody's aware and especially MA's all of our different ways we can reach the community that's it thank you all right is there a motion for uh C10023 I move we exempt C T 023 as introduced and amended all right is there a second I'll second time all right all those in favor signify by saying aye aye motion passes all right uh no other business to come before the board today our next meeting is September 25th in this room T260 at 3 p.m at the city county building this meeting is adjourned