East Windsor Officials Considering Reducing Wetland Application Fees

East Windsor selectmen are considering a proposal to reduce Inland-Wetland Watercourse Agency application fees.

The selectmen at their meeting last week asked for more information about the proposal.

Assistant Town Planner Robin Newton said the wetlands commission began investigating the fee schedule about a year ago after an application came in with a fee of about $20,000. Newton said there was also a discrepancy in the amount of fees when the Wal-Mart Supercenter application was presented.

One development came in with $9,000 in fees but had no wetlands impact. There have also been a couple of businesses that did not submit applications because the fees were too high, Newton said.

Town staff are proposing that fees be cut in half. Newton said that the work town staff has done on proposed developments has not equaled the high amounts of some of the applications.

Selectman Alan Baker said he doesn’t agree with cutting the fees in half. He said someone has to pay for the work of town employees and that would have to be the taxpayers or the developer.

Selectman James Richards said he is concerned about how competitive East Windsor is with other communities in its fee structure and would like to see more information about it.

“I don’t have a problem if we’re tabling this until we see a listing of other towns,” Richards said.

Selectman Richard Pippin Jr. voted against tabling the proposal saying the wetlands commission has done all of  the work.

“It’s been going on for two years,” Pippin said.