All provisions of this chapter shall be administered by the Municipal Council or its officially designated representatives. All matters relating to this chapter shall be submitted to the Municipal Manager, who will handle the matter in accordance with current municipal policies, procedures, and guidelines established by the Municipal Council.
The Municipality shall keep a public record of its correspondence, findings, recommendations, and actions relating to plans filed for review, in accordance with the policies, procedures, and guidelines established by the Municipal Council and Planning Commission.
1. 
No application for preliminary or final plan approval shall be received and processed until the fees and/or escrow deposit, as set forth below, shall have been paid.
2. 
The Municipal Council shall adopt and amend by resolution a schedule of fees payable by the applicant to the Municipality for the filing of preliminary and final plans.
3. 
The Municipal Council shall adopt and amend by resolution a schedule of escrow deposits to be paid by the applicant to the Municipality at the time of filing of an application, sufficient to pay all municipal expenditures anticipated in the course of its review and disposition of plans.
A. 
Costs incurred by the Municipality in excess of the escrowed amount shall be paid by the applicant prior to the granting of approvals or permits.
B. 
If costs incurred by the Municipality are less than the escrowed amount, the difference shall be refunded to the applicant following disposition of the plans.
4. 
Municipal expenditures subject to escrow as in § 282-702.3 above include but are not limited to the following:
A. 
Engineering and other technical services, such as plan review and construction inspections.
B. 
Materials and facilities tests.
C. 
Services of the Municipal Solicitor in reviewing and/or preparing documents related to the plan reviews.
D. 
Actual costs of recording.
E. 
An administrative charge of 15% of the total costs described in the previous four subsections
5. 
Disputes. In the event that the applicant disputes the amount of any such review fees, the applicant shall, within 10 days of the billing date of the notice of withdrawal by the Municipality of an amount for deposit, notify the Municipality that the fees are disputed. In such case, the Municipality shall not delay or disapprove a subdivision or land development due to the applicant's request over disputed fees. The following steps shall be taken to resolve disputes over contested review fees:
A. 
In the event that the Municipality and the applicant cannot agree on the amount of any review fees which are reasonable and necessary, then the Municipality and applicant shall jointly, by mutual agreement, appoint another professional engineer to examine the disputed review fees and make a determination as to the amount thereof which is fair and reasonable within 50 days.
B. 
Following the independent engineer's decision, the applicant shall pay the entire amount determined immediately.
C. 
If the Municipality and applicant cannot agree on an independent engineer within 20 days of the billing date, then, upon application of either party, the President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the judicial district in which the Municipality is located shall appoint an engineer who shall be neither the Municipal Engineer nor any professional engineer who has been retained by or performed services for the Municipality or applicant within the preceding five years.
D. 
The fee of the appointed professional engineer for determining the reasonable and necessary review fees shall be paid by the applicant if the amount of payment required in the decision is equal to or greater than the original bill. If the amount of payment is less than the original bill by $1,000 or more, the Municipality shall pay the professional engineer's fees. Otherwise, the applicant and the Municipality should each pay 1/2 of the fees of the professional engineer.
Upon review and recommendation by the Municipal Planning Commission, the Municipal Council may grant a modification of the requirements of one or more provisions of this chapter if the literal enforcement of them would exact undue hardship because of peculiar conditions pertaining to the land in question, provided that such modification(s) will not be contrary to the public interest and that the purpose and intent of this chapter is observed. All requests for modification(s) shall:
1. 
Be in writing and part of an application for subdivision and/or land development;
2. 
State the grounds and facts of unreasonableness or hardship on which the request is based;
3. 
List the provision(s) of the ordinance involved;
4. 
State the minimum modification necessary; and
5. 
Be subject to approval by the Municipal Council after receiving advisory recommendations from the Norristown Planning Commission.
1. 
Preventative remedies.
A. 
In addition to other remedies, the Municipality may institute and maintain appropriate actions by law or in equity to restrain, correct or abate violations, to prevent unlawful construction, to recover damages and to prevent illegal occupancy of a building.
B. 
The Municipality may refuse to issue any permit or grant any approval necessary to further improve any real property which has been developed or has resulted from a subdivision in violation to this chapter. As an additional condition for the issuance of any permit or approval, the Municipality may require compliance with the conditions that would have been applicable to the property at the time the applicant acquired it.
2. 
Any person, partnership, or corporation who or which has violated the provisions of this chapter shall, upon being found liable therefor in a civil enforcement proceeding commenced by the Municipality, pay a judgment of not more than $500, plus all court costs, including the reasonable attorneys' fees incurred by the Municipality as a result thereof.
3. 
No judgment shall commence or be imposed, levied, or be payable until the date of the determination of a violation by the District Justice.
4. 
If the defendant neither pays nor timely appeals the judgment, the Municipality may enforce the judgment pursuant to the applicable rules of civil procedure.
5. 
Each day that a violation continues shall constitute a separate violation, unless the District Justice determining that there has been a violation further determines that there was a good-faith basis for the person, partnership, or corporation violating the chapter to have believed that there was no such violation, in which event there shall be deemed to have been only one such violation until the fifth day following the date of the determination of a violation by the District Justice, and thereafter each day that a violation continues shall constitute a separate violation.
6. 
All fines collected for such violations shall be paid to the Municipality.