REPEAL REGULATION OF COMM. PLANNERS                                      S.B. 494 & H.B. 4377:

                                                                                              SUMMARY AS ENACTED

Senate Bill 494 (as enacted)                                                    PUBLIC ACT 153 of 2014

House Bill 4377 (as enacted)                                                    PUBLIC ACT 154 of 2014

Sponsor:  Senator Bruce Caswell (S.B. 494)

               Representative Tim Kelly (H.B. 4377)

Senate Committee:  Regulatory Reform

House Committee:  Regulatory Reform

Date Completed:  6-24-14

CONTENT

House Bill 4377 repealed Article 23 of the Occupational Code, which regulated professional community planners.

Senate Bill 494 repealed Section 23 of the State License Fee Act, which had set fees for a person registered or seeking registration as a professional community planner under Article 23 of the Occupational Code.

The bills were tie-barred and took effect on June 11, 2014.

House Bill 4377

Article 23 defined "community planner" as a person qualified to prepare comprehensive community plans. "Comprehensive community plan" meant a unified document of text, charts, graphics, or maps, or combination of them, designed to portray general, long-range proposals for the arrangement of land uses and intended primarily to guide government policy toward achieving orderly and coordinated development of the entire community. Only a person registered under Article 23 was allowed to use the title "community planner".

Article 23 also created a Board of Professional Community Planners and required the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) to issue a registration to an individual applying for registration as a community planner if he or she met certain requirements.

Senate Bill 494

Section 23 of the State License Fee Act had set fees for a person registered or seeking registration as a professional community planner under Article 23 of the Occupational Code, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Fee Type	Amount
Application processing fee, through September 30, 2015	$35
Application processing fee after September 30, 2015	$30
Supplemental application processing fee	$20
Examination fee, Michigan portion	$100
Examination review	$25
Registration fee, per year	$50

MCL 338.2223 (S.B. 494)                                          Legislative Analyst:  Patrick Affholter

       339.2301-339.2310 (H.B. 4377)

FISCAL IMPACT

The bills will have an indeterminate fiscal impact on the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs and no fiscal impact on local units of government. To the extent that the loss of revenue from the fees previously paid by community planners Is less than the administrative savings achieved from not regulating the profession, the bill will have a minor positive fiscal impact on LARA.

                                                                                        Fiscal Analyst:  Josh Sefton

This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.