The fee for homeowners and businesses who start building work without planning permission has risen by 900 percent, with the largest developments now attracting a charge of more than $25,000.The increased cost for retroactive approval came into effect on April 1, along with a hike of about 200 percent in the fees for retroactive building permits.For the biggest developments, those where the floor area is larger than 1,000 sq ft, the amount payable to Government in retroactive fees is now $32,950, where it was $5,150.For the smallest plots, those under 200 sq ft, the amount payable has risen from $1,236 to $8,034.According to the Department of Planning’s website, the change will affect not only those who fail to get final planning approval and a permit before starting building work, but those who carry out revisions once construction is under way without an amendment to their original approved plan.Such applicants will have to pay the increased retroactive fees on top of an increased revision charge of $310. The revision fee was previously $155.The website’s guidance notes on revisions advise: “All retroactive revisions will be subject to an additional retroactive fee. This will apply when any aspect of the revision is retroactive.“Following the amendment of the fee regulations in 2012 ... the retroactive fee was significantly increased for both planning and building control.”Planning consultant Aideen Ratteray Pryse, of ARP Consulting Services, said yesterday: “Changes will occur during construction. That happens many times and it’s not necessarily that someone was intending to ‘do wrong’.“There needs to be a distinction between people who have to make a slight tweak here and there and people who are blindly or not so blindly going full steam ahead with no intention of rectifying the changes.“The challenge will be to be able to figure out which is which. I guess that’s going to rely a lot on the building inspectors and the contractors and the homeowners addressing changes as they go along and dealing with them in an honest and upfront manner.”The increased charges are contained in the Government Fees Amendment Regulations 2012, which were recently approved by Parliament.Premier Paula Cox told the House of Assembly the retroactive planning permission and building permit fees were “significantly increased to serve as [a] deterrent”.Shadow Environment Minister Michael Fahy claimed the fee increases did not reflect Government’s “electioneering mantra” that it would “do more with less” in 2012/13.“This is raising money to pay for flawed policies and mismanaging the economy,” said the Opposition senator. “It’s another way, in my view, of trying to plug a hole.“They can put it whichever they want and say it is to act as a deterrent but I don’t believe it. All of this is revenue raising.”Sen Fahy said the steep rise in retroactive planning and building permit fees could backfire by deterring people from making retroactive applications at all.“Too often people are building without the requisite permission,” he said. “It seems fairly straightforward to get retroactive planning permission.“It’s time for a comprehensive review of planning laws to not even make it possible to do some of these things.”The Ministry of Environment, which is responsible for the Department of Planning, did not respond to a request for comment by press time last night.l Useful website: www.planning.gov.bm.