Belvedere halves $698,400 fine for home project delayed two years

Belvedere’s City Council slashed a homeowner’s $698,400 construction penalty in half last week, granting partial relief in a marathon appeal that detailed two years of project delays from contractor problems, flooding and serious illnesses.

Homeowner Marshall Miller wanted the penalty wiped out entirely for his project at 431 Golden Gate Ave., which finished 627 days past the city’s deadline, but the council voted unanimously Feb. 9 to cut the penalty by 299 days. That leaves him on the hook for 328 days of fines, amounting to $339,600.

The project — a major addition and remodel of a single-family home, including a new accessory dwelling unit, garage reconstruction and extensive site and landscape work — began under a previous construction-time-limit ordinance with retroactive, uncapped penalties. Large projects got 18 months to finish, with a possible six-month extension, and were fined up to $1,200 daily for overruns.

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