Building permit report reflects area growth

OUTING -- Booming lake country construction is reflected in Cass County Environmental Services Department's comparison for the number of land use permits issued in 2002, compared with 1997.

Environmental Services Director Paul Fairbanks presented a six-year comparison to the county board Tuesday for number of permits his department has issued, showing about a 10 percent per year land use permit increase.

The county issued 1,653 land use zoning permits last year, up annually since the 1,219 issued in 1997. Fees property owners pay the county for these permits rose from $157,685 in 1997 to $369,158 last year.

The number of variances the department issued rose from 61 in 1997 to 74 in 2003. Conditional use permits similarly rose from 29 to 40.

Requests for shoreland alterations nearly doubled, rising from 133 in 1997 to 242 last year. Land reclassification requests mushroomed from three in 1997 to 27 last year.

In other environmental services issues, William Korman, Crooked Lake Township Board chair, asked the county board to consider revising the county land use ordinance to revert to a provision, which required fence set-backs from all roads.

He said in Crooked Lake Township there are some roads recorded as only 30 feet wide. This does not allow enough room for snowplows to pile snow adjacent to the roads if privacy fences are built at property lines.

He asked for at least a six-foot setback from road rights-of-way. Fairbanks said the county could look at restoring fence setbacks to the county ordinance.

The commissioners authorized final payment to Eagle Construction for the new garbage transfer station building north of Pine River after Fairbanks confirmed that remodeled baffles now do direct garbage dumped from haulers' trucks into a semi-trailer truck without spilling any onto the building floor.

They also approved a $1,410 deduct from an earlier contract for inspecting welds on the baffle.

Fairbanks reported Cass County collected the most household hazardous waste of 10 partner-owners for processing at the household hazardous waste processing facility at Bagley.

Cass collected 15,150 pounds of latex paints and 16,800 pounds of other household hazardous waste products for processing at the plant. Cass not only accepts household hazardous waste at the transfer station north of Pine River, but also conducts one-day collection programs throughout the summer at cities throughout the county.