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Salem council interested in SAFEbuilt proposal

SALEM — City council’s Committee of the Whole agreed Tuesday to move toward a more formal proposal from SAFEbuilt to provide building department services to the city.

“We really need this on the residential side,” Councilwoman Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey said.

Dickey chairs the Committee of the Whole and asked Mayor John Berlin what he needed, with Berlin saying he needed some direction on whether to go forward and get some numbers from the SAFEbuilt representative regarding a possible fee scale for permits and a contract so the law director can put together a proposed ordinance for council to consider.The committee, which includes all seven council members, agreed to go forward.

SAFEbuilt Regional Operations Manager John Cheatham explained the company’s proposal in great detail, which would include a building official, commercial and residential plans examiner and building inspector for all trades. There would be no cost to the city except for providing a desk in the Planning & Zoning office. Under a percentage of fee model, SAFEbuilt would get 90 percent of the building permit fees and the city would keep 10 percent.

In essense, SAFEbuilt would provide the building department commercial services currently provided by the state of Ohio through the Department of Commerce for plan approvals, change of use, certificate of occupancy and inspections for structural and electrical. The proposal would add in residential services, which the city currently does not have except for zoning permits for work being done.

Supporters indicated having a local building department could potentially ease the building process for contractors, businesses and building owners besides having more oversight for residential projects, ultimately increasing property values and lowering insurance costs.

In a show of hands requested by Dickey, representatives of the Downtown Salem Partnership (DSP) and Design Review Board both pledged support for the idea. Salem Fire Chief Scott Mason also pledged support, saying he gets little input from the state.

“To me to be effective, I think we need to have a building department in town,” he said.

Councilman Geoff Goll said he was having a problem with the idea of doing residential, which would be a big change from what the city has now. The plan would involve both new construction and renovations and fees which Cheatham said could be as much as $2,000 or more for a new home construction, depending on the size of the home. For a resident doing renovations now, they pay for a zoning permit from the city and that’s it. With the exception of a plumbing permit and plumbing inspection, there’s no other requirement. Some contractors follow state code, but some don’t and do-it-yourselfers probably don’t.

Goll questioned why they have to do both residential and commercial, why can’t they do just one, but Cheatham said just doing one wouldn’t be conducive to the company financially. He said they need the whole package to make it work.

City Planning & Zoning Officer Chip Hank gave an example of what he recently came across for a residential construction project. The resident was taking apart wooden pallets to build a deck. Currently, all he can do is just tell them where they can put it, not how to build it safely. Cheatham said technically, people are supposed to follow the state building code for residential, but with no oversight, they don’t and they may not even be aware. They become aware when a problem occurs, such as a catastrophe, and find out their insurance won’t cover because the code wasn’t followed.

William Dawes, president of the DSP, works in the mortgage industry and said there’s an issue with home purchasers being able to get financing for homes because of their condition. The housing inventory is aging and people aren’t upgrading homes and restoring them, they’re just living in them because finances are tight. Maybe with some oversight, the values could go up.

As for being able to come to Salem to open a business, he explained that DSP member Tricia Hovorka did a flow chart showing the major stumbling blocks to starting a business, including securing a certificate of occupancy, change of use and work that needs to be done to get a permit. He said a call to the state gets a different answer each time and then there’s the wait for approvals and requirements for architectural drawings sometimes when there’s little structural change.

“This is a barrier to economic development in our community,” Dawes said.

Berlin said he was approached by DSP about SAFEbuilt and he had several meetings with city officials and department heads with Cheatham. He touched on the rating for insurance and noted how the city has an ISO rating of 3 for the fire department and water department, for building code, the city goes by the state code, which has a rating of 4. For residential, the rating is 99 because there’s no enforcement of the building code. With a local building department, that could improve.

Sustainable Opportunity Development Center Executive Director Julie Needs said developers want to see a building department locally.

Councilman Andrew Null asked several questions on how the proposal would work and Cheatham said they would follow the state building code for both residential and commercial and work with the city zoning department, health department and the fire department. They would follow the law, but where there’s latitude, they would give it while enforcing the rules.

The city would have to adopt the Ohio building code, set up the department and set the fees. Cheatham pointed out that the state fees are typically much higher than any local building department, so costs for permits could be less than what people are paying now, but that would be up to council.

mgreier@salemnews.net

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