Atlanta Area Builders Association Wins Major Fee Settlement

A drawn-out legal battle over building permit fees was recently resolved when DeKalb County, GA, agreed to pay a $1.65 million settlement to the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association.

The precedent setting case, Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association, Inc. v. DeKalb County, began nearly four years ago, when the association realized that funds raised from a recent building permit fee increase were not being used for their intended purpose.

Builders worked with the county to negotiate the fee increase, proceeds from which were to fund additional building inspectors and increased services. Georgia law says that regulatory fees must be proportional to the cost of providing the associated services. In reality, the new fees were not used to enhance county services and DeKalb County's development department began to accumulate a large budget surplus.

Filing a lawsuit was not the association's first choice for changing the excessive fee structure.  Jeff Rader, vice president of operations and public policy for the Atlanta association, said that his group “places a high priority on having a good working relationship with local elected officials.” But when the county was not responsive to the association's attempts to work with them, the association was forced to file suit.

The association originally sought a declaratory judgment from the Superior Court of DeKalb County, which would have ordered the county to fix its fee structure, rather than settling the case monetarily. The county had the case moved to federal court, where the association's motion for summary judgment was granted and the court maintained that the fee structure violated state law. The county appealed the decision — and later decisions that favored the association — and said it would continue to contest every ruling that required them to refund fees.

The threat of further legal delays from the county, coupled with the association's desire to provide relief for their members, prompted them to accept as a settlement a $1.65 million payment from the county.

The Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association's board of directors appointed a task force to determine how the unusual lump-sum payment will be used; the task force will report their recommendations by the end of the year.

The association has recently sought similar relief from the city of Atlanta.
 
For more information on the Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association's efforts, contact Sandra Cathy at 770-938-9900.
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