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BACKUS-Cass County Planning Director Paul Fairbanks reported Tuesday to the county board that 1,105 land use zoning permits issued in 2017 topped the 974 issued in 2016.

Those permits are for new building construction, building additions and new private sewer systems. Applicants paid the county $320,860.44 for their permits in 2017, compared with $280,711.58 in 2016.

Permit revenue primarily pays for on-site inspections and application processing.

The largest number of new construction permits continued to be issued in Woodrow Township. Woodrow lies between Hackensack and Longville. It had 87 new construction permits.

The next highest number of new construction permits was issued for Shingobee by Walker and Sylvan by Pillager (72 each), Crooked Lake by Outing (68), Wabedo by Longville (58), Powers by Backus (54) and Ponto Lake by Backus (51).

The county also processed 95 variance applications in 2017, compared with 74 in 2016.

Of the 95 variance applications, nine were later withdrawn.

The planning commission denied seven and approved 85. The vast majority involved new construction or expansion of an existing non-conforming structure. Many involved lake setbacks, Fairbanks said.

Conditional use applications remained the same at 19. Applications for shoreland alterations increased from 167 in 2016 to 246 in 2017.

Prior to the 2008 recession, Cass County Environmental Services Department was processing about two new plat applications per month, Fairbanks said. Each of the last three years, there was only one new plat filed all year, he noted.

Plats are used to subdivide a single property into 10 or more lots.

There were two minor subdivisions approved in 2017 for land division into less than 10 lots.

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