REPEAL REGULATION OF COMM. PLANNERS H.B. 4377:
COMMITTEE SUMMARY
House Bill 4377 (as passed by the House)
Sponsor: Representative Tim Kelly
House Committee: Regulatory Reform
Senate Committee: Regulatory Reform
CONTENT
The bill would repeal Article 23 of the Occupational Code, which regulates and provides for the registration of professional community planners, and would delete related provisions of the Code. The bill also would repeal Section 23 of the State License Fee Act, which specifies various fees for registration as a professional community planner.
Repealers
The bill would repeal Article 23 (Community Planners) of the Occupational Code. Article 23 defines "community planner" as a person qualified to prepare comprehensive community plans. "Comprehensive community plan" means 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 that is intended primarily to guide government policy toward achieving orderly and coordinated development of the entire community. Only a person registered under Article 23 may use the title "community planner".
Article 23 also created a Board of Professional Community Planners and requires 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 meets certain requirements.
The bill also would repeal Section 23 of the State License Fee Act. That section sets 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 |
Board Terms & Registration Issuance Periods
Under the Code, the term of office of a member of the Board of Professional Community Planners begins on July 1. The bill would delete that provision.
The Code requires LARA to issue an initial or renewal license or registration within 90 days after an applicant files a completed application If the Department considers the application incomplete, it must notify the applicant within 30 days after receiving the incomplete application, describing the deficiency and requesting additional information. The 90-day period is tolled from the date LARA notifies the applicant of a deficiency until the date the Department receives the requested information. Those requirements do not apply to certain licenses or registrations, including a registration for a community planner under Article 23. The bill would delete community planners from the list of licenses or registrations to which the requirements do not apply.
MCL 339.303a et al. Legislative Analyst: Patrick Affholter
FISCAL IMPACT
The bill would 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 currently paid by community planners was less than the administrative savings achieved from not regulating the profession, the bill would have a minor positive fiscal impact on LARA.
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.