Business owners in Chatham-Kent will be paying the full cost of their license fees within two years if council adopts a report from administration at its Dec. 14 meeting.
C-K Licensing Manager Nancy Havens said the report came about as a request during the municipal service review.
She said the direction was to remove the costs from the general tax base and onto those actually using the service.
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“During the review we examined what it cost to issue licenses in various sectors including costs for inspections and other services,” she said. “In some sectors the fees will go down while others will rise but it’s all related to our costs.”
In order to smooth the transition, the report recommends increasing the amount paid by licensees to 80 per cent of costs in 2016 and 100 per cent the following year.
The municipality collects just under $100,000 per year in various fees.
The only major addition to the licensing structure was the addition of salvage yards that had previously been exempt.
“We received a request from the police to include salvage yards and we complied with that,” she said.
A public hearing on the bylaw held last week attracted about 13 business owners, the majority of which were salvage yard representatives who wanted to become acquainted with the new aspects of the bylaw.
“We used the opportunity to consolidate our business licensing into one document,” she said. “Prior to this there were more than 20 different business bylaws.”
