By SCOTT RASMUSSEN

County reporter

If you’re submitting an application for a permit from the county it might be best to bring a checkbook or credit card along. It could save you from having to make two trips.

That’s because the San Juan County Community Development and Planning Department will soon begin charging 40 percent up front on the cost of building and land-use permits. That 40 percent equals the amount of work generally performed in the first phase of processing permits, the so-called plan review, according to CDPD Deputy Director Rene Beliveau.

Beliveau said the pending change in the way the department collects permit fees was approved by County Council in December to better enable the department to be compensated for the work it does and avoid performing work for which it is not. Historically, permits have been paid for in their entirety after they’re complete and when they’re picked up.

Occasionally, however, Beliveau said there are applications that don’t qualify for a permit and once in awhile permits that are approved are never picked up and paid for. Either way, he said, the department loses money for the work that went into the plan review.

“It’s something we should’ve been doing all along,” he said. “We just haven’t had the mechanism to do it until now.”

Beliveau said the new fee collection system should take effect sometime in the next several months.