The Hoquiam City Council unanimously approved a proposal Monday that will dramatically decrease the fee charged for shorelines permit applications for large scale projects.

The change was spurred by letters from Port of Grays Harbor Executive Director Gary Nelson and from BHP, the company behind a proposed potash storage and shipping facility at the Port of Grays Harbor, saying the existing shorelines permit fee structure was overly burdensome and discouraged large-scale development within the city.

City Administrator Brian Shay gave the council two options. The first would cap the maximum valuation of a shorelines project at $55,000, and the applicant would still pay the outside consulting fee. The second option caps the maximum permit fee at $50,000, and again requires the applicant to also pay for the outside consulting fee. The council approved option two.

Shay said he did some research and found that the city’s existing shorelines permit fees were the fourth highest in the state. He said by changing the structure to option two, the city is still fourth highest in the state, but much more friendly to large scale projects like BHP’s.

“Under our current fee structure BHP is looking at a permit of $445,000 plus the outside consulting fees,” said Shay before the vote. Under the second option that was approved by the council, he said the fee would drop to $50,000 plus the outside consulting fee, about $60,000 for the BHP project, according to Shay.

Councilman Dave Wilson from Ward 1 questioned if the fee might still be too high for large-scale projects.

“Are we sure this reduction is enough?” he asked. “We want to encourage development here,” and he was concerned the fact Hoquiam is still fourth highest in shorelines permit application fees might make developers shy away from the city. In the end, he joined the rest of the council and approved the second option provided by Shay.