AUBURN — City staff told officials Monday that lowering building permit fees for new agricultural buildings would promote agriculture in Auburn with little impact to revenues.

The proposal comes on the heels of recent changes to the city’s Agriculture and Resource Protection zone after months of debate, and city officials agreed that reducing the permit fees could be a small way to promote agriculture in Auburn.

According to Eric Cousens, deputy director of Economic and Community Development, all new agricultural buildings are lumped in with commercial buildings, which carry a permit fee of $25 plus 35 cents per square foot of floor area.

His proposal is to lower the permit fee to $25 plus 7 cents per square foot of floor area — the same rate as a residential accessory structure.

In a memo to the council, Cousens said agricultural buildings and barns tend to be large structures that result in large permit fees. However, he said they are “generally less complex from an inspection perspective than offices, retail and industrial buildings that are currently in the same commercial permit category.”

“Some communities have chosen to charge a smaller permit fee for agricultural buildings or structures that are unfinished on the interior to promote agriculture and to recognize the smaller cost of inspection services related to the proposed buildings,” he said.

Councilor Holly Lasagna, who pushed for the change, said Monday that it’s “really important to demonstrate support for (agriculture),” and that the fee reduction is just one way Auburn can do it.

Cousens said the average loss in revenue due to the change would be between $196 to $376, based on the previous 12 years of activity. He said those numbers signal that there have “not been a lot of substantial farm buildings built in the last 12 years.”

Committee review 

Also on Monday, the council discussed a proposal by Mayor Jason Levesque to create an ad hoc committee to review Auburn’s boards, commissions and committees.

He said based on the large number of committees, he’d like a formal review to assess how much staff time and support is required.

Levesque proposed that the committee be made up of himself, two councilors, two Planning Board members and two city staff members.

The committee would complete its work by May 15, and present a final report to the council by June 15, he said.

Councilor Lasagna said there should be a standard form designed that requests info from each committee.

Councilor Belinda Gerry said it should include statements on why the board was formed, what it has achieved and what can make them “more efficient to meet today’s needs.”

Levesque said boards and committees “should be there to help bring the council info to make decisions,” and that a review will help give a snapshot of the “true staff time” used by committees.

A resolution on the ad hoc committee will go to a council vote next week.

Levesque meets President Trump

Mayor Levesque provided a short recap of his visit to the White House last week, where he took part in a special meeting of the U.S Conference of Mayors alongside President Donald Trump.

Levesque said Monday that the meeting, on “transforming America’s communities,” lasted about four hours, where he and other mayors from across the country talked about the administration’s priorities of “driving urban revitalization and rural prosperity through innovative tools like opportunity zones, facilitating economic development through deregulation,” and more.

He said he believes Auburn’s designated Opportunity Zone is among the best in Maine, and that officials should make it a priority to market and develop.

The amount of information I gained and learned is absolutely mind-boggling,” he said Monday.

He added that following the meeting, he briefly joined Trump in the Oval Office along with the mayors of Fort Worth, Texas; Glendale, Arizona and other municipalities.

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