Dive Brief:

• A Palo Alto, Calif., City Council committee says enough is enough with construction or remodeling projects that go unfinished beyond their building permit and make a mess of neighborhoods.
• The committee unanimously sent the full council an ordinance that would grant a 30-day grace period to finish, then would slap the builder with a $200-per-day fine for the next 30 days, a $400-per-day penalty for the 60 days after that and an $800-per-day fine from there on out.
• Council members said projects are just being left incomplete for too long – a decade in one case – and impose on their neighborhoods.

Dive Insight:

The committee that approved the fines unanimously also wants to make it harder for builders to get permit extensions, thereby avoiding the penalties for incompletes. It has been up to city buildings officials, but the council members said they want to see a system in which the staff gets to grant two 180-day extensions and then the applicant has to come before the council to get anything more.