We understand the good intentions of our civic-minded public servants seeking budget solutions to provide needed services and infrastructure improvements in the City of Lewes. However, we fear that perhaps city council and the public were not aware of or failed to foresee an impact of the requirement to obtain a building permit to replace an existing HVAC system, now magnified with the recent doubling of the permit fee from 1.5% to 3%, effective April 1. As far as we can determine, no formal notice to current Lewes property owners of this change was made.
Having solicited quotes for such a project last summer, we recently contacted our selected contractor to revisit the estimate. A requirement for a more environmentally friendly refrigerant became effective Jan. 1, and this change, together with supply chain increases, resulted in a 9% increase in the cost of our project. Imagine our surprise to then learn that:
1. A building permit is required to replace an existing HVAC system, with no modifications other than vastly improved energy efficiency and environmental impact over the current equipment
2. The fee for this permit recently doubled with, to my knowledge, no advance notice to citizens/taxpayers, an especially rude surprise to those who, like us, were already planning to move forward on previously obtained quotes.
This requirement is adding close to $1,000 to the total cost of our project. I imagine the cumulative increases could lead many to delay replacing an older, inefficient, perhaps leaking system that is clunking along well enough.
Sussex County specifically exempts replacement of existing HVAC systems from its building permit requirement list. If Lewes truly holds as priorities improving our environment and reducing energy consumption (which we learned earlier this summer is an urgent need), we are baffled as to why the city does not follow this precedent, or at a minimum, exempt this work from the 100% increase.
We urge the city to rescind the building permit requirement for replacement of previously existing HVAC systems.
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