The City Commission is meeting now on the Use and Occupancy Program. Staff says, upon further reflection with the City Manager and utilizing the past experience and expertise of the City’s new Code Compliance Manager, Raquel Diaz, and is proposing an alternative method to implement the new Use and Occupancy Program. The implementation process would be as follows:
- 1. Cross reference the City’s own database of addresses for existing Business Tax Receipts that are either active or inactive with property information including owner and address as documented in the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s database. Field staff would then confirm the existing situation at these properties and notify the current property owners of the requirements of the Use and Occupancy program. The notification would be unique for this category.
- 2. Cross reference list of Business Tax Receipts both active and inactive with the list of commercial/business/industrial properties as maintained by the Palm Beach County Fire Rescue. Those properties that were not identified in round one would be contacted.
- 3. Cross reference list of County Business Licenses with the City’s in-progress database of Business Tax Receipts to determine whether or not additional property owners would need to be contacted. The notification would be unique for this category.
- 4. Cross reference properties in the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s database showing either multi-family zoning or multiply residential dwelling units with our current Business Tax Receipts (Residential Rentals). Field staff then would confirm the status of all properties identified that do not have a receipt and all would be notified of the new requirements of the use and Occupancy program. The notification would be unique for this category.
- 5. Cross reference properties where the utility record is different than the property owner, which is one avenue to ascertain homesteaded properties that are being leased. Field staff would verify the situation. Property owners in this category would be notified with a letter unique to this situation.
- 6. Cross reference residential homesteaded properties where the property address and the owner’s address differ. Field staff would verify the situation. Property owners in this category would be notified with a letter unique to this situation.
- 7. Any properties that were not determined to be homesteaded and did not fall into one of these six (6) categories would be field verified to ascertain existing/current conditions
This sounds so much more sensical/logical. What a waste sending those letters to all homesteaded properties where the address and property are the same for home/taxes.
ReplyDeleteI think that mailing from last week was a huge waste of money, wasting postage, printing, and paper/envelops.
We need someone up there with some logical sense, Golden, and the crew haven't shown too much of this lately. I drove by Golden's house today too and sure enough she is violating the sign law just like Rachel, tons of signs all wrapped around her corner property. She won't be getting any vote from me this year, she can't even return my e-mails, can she get anything right?
Let's hope they can readdress this botched mailing of the occupancy tax/form.
I don't understand the point of having and paying for both a rental license and a use and occupancy license for a rental property. A use and occupancy fee makes sense for a home business or a regular business but a rental property is being used as a home not a business.
ReplyDeleteWhy have two programs, why have multiple correspondence and payments to different depts. all tracked, or not tracked by different depts. I think rental properties should be covered by the rental license and there should be no other license/fee required. Rental properties are inspected at time of rental license and they should not be reinspected when the utilities change name.
The city is making more work for themselves and diverting precious resources by sending code out to inspect properties that were already inspected and passed three mos. ago.