“We are reviewing all of our fees and comparing with...

“We are reviewing all of our fees and comparing with other municipalities,” Glen Cove Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck, above, said in an email. Credit: Howard Simmons

Glen Cove officials have adjusted the estimated price of building commercial apartments — a move that is expected to bring significantly higher permit revenues to the city.

At a City Council meeting last month, Mayor Pamela Panzenbeck said the city would change the construction estimate for commercial apartments from $150 per square foot to $275 per square foot, beginning Jan. 1.

“We are reviewing all of our fees and comparing with other municipalities,” Panzenbeck said in an email. “We have been lower than most other townships and are trying to come to parity.”

Scott Grupp, the city’s building department director, said the figure is a tool used on permit application forms to estimate total construction costs. If a section on estimated construction costs isn’t filled out or is significantly under what is considered a normal price in the market, the city will use the $275 figure, which, he said, “is at the lower end of construction estimates.”

“With these larger projects, they tend to run more in the $400-per-square-foot” range, Grupp said. “But we’re not going to be charging people for gold-plated faucets. We just want a reasonable construction number.”

The city charges a 2.5% permit fee based on overall construction costs, according to city officials.

Mike Piccirillo, the city’s controller, said a 150,000-square-foot commercial project would have an estimated cost of $22.5 million under the past $150 figure and take in $562,500 in permit fees. Under the new fees, that same project would be estimated to cost $41.25 million and bring in just over $1 million in permit fees.

By comparison, North Hempstead uses an estimated cost of $160 per square foot for commercial properties, according to town spokesman Umberto Mignardi. The town doesn’t charge a specific percentage of overall construction costs to determine a permit fee, he said, and instead uses a multistep formula to arrive at that figure.

On a 50,210-square-foot building estimated to cost just over $8 million, for example, the commercial building permit fee in North Hempstead would be $112,676.

Town of Oyster Bay spokesman Brian Nevin said the town uses RSMeans, a nationwide industry pricing guide, to come up with a cost of construction and materials before determining a fee per square foot. Oyster Bay uses a similar formula with additional charges for each time a permit is amended.

The Town of Hempstead did not respond to a request for information on its pricing.

Glen Cove expects a windfall of building department revenue in 2025 from multiple commercial projects expected to get underway, city officials said. The city budgeted $2.1 million in building department permit revenues in 2025, Newsday reported, after receiving just $524,400 in 2023 and $189,830 in permit fees through the first nine months of 2024.

The city raised property owner taxes for the first time in three years in its 2025 budget.

Kyle Strober, executive director of the Association for a Better Long Island, said municipalities shouldn’t use the cost of construction as a basis for assigning permit fees but instead charge developers based on the cost it takes to review building plans.

Raising the estimated construction costs and ballooning permit fees increases the financial risk of development, he said.

“As a result, investors will look to other areas to do business that welcome investment and job creation," Strober said.

Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp, Kendall Rodriguez; Gary Licker

Things to do now on LI Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break.

Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp, Kendall Rodriguez; Gary Licker

Things to do now on LI Rock climbing? Indoor beach volleyball? Water parks? Arts and crafts? NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano and Newsday deputy lifestyle editor Meghan Giannotta have your look at ways to spend your winter break.

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