Town Manager, EITA break down new building services
Since the town incorporated, Lee County has been contracted to provide the work for many aspects of the Community Development department, such as permitting and inspections. The agreement expired in September but was extended for a few months.
Earlier this year, Lee County let the town know that it would not be renewing the agreement to handle Fort Myers Beach’s building services needs. Fort Myers Beach officially assumed those duties April 2
During its April meeting, Estero Island Taxpayers Association leader Beverly Milligan held a Q&A with Town Manager Roger Hernstadt to break down what that means for the town.
Permitting turn-around time has been a frequent complaint with the town, and Hernstadt said during that extension, the town asked for a commitment from the county to hit certain turn-around time goals to improve the length of time town residents got their permits, and to potentially have one of the county staff at Town Hall for office hours, so the public could more easily communicate.
Hernstadt said the county decided it’d rather end the agreement – and the town then had to decide if it wanted to absorb those services or find somewhere else to contract out those services.
“I had discussed this subject with Town Council and told them it was a possibility. I warned them if we took it over, it becomes our responsibility to provide customers service in a timely fashion,” he said. “They said they were a little nervous.”
Hernstadt had already brought Bob Bogart, building services manager, on board with some anticipation that permitting would be brought in house, and wanted someone with the skill set.
“I feel we’re in a good position to take over these services,” he said. “There will be a learning curve, but we will be there at Town Hall, you can meet with Bob. I hope people will come talk to us before they find themselves in a jam.”
Milligan asked if it would mean a cost savings or an expense to the town, and what challenges and benefits it could offer, once building services is totally in house.
Hernstadt said he believed the in-house move could mean an improvement on the level of service provided to the public. People could more easily come in and ask questions of staff, rather than having to wait around for the county.
He said he planned to encourage staff that rather than reject a permit application, to approve with comment if there were superficial errors or omitted information. Major issues would need to be more thoroughly addressed and brought back in for permit approval.
“A lot of times, the plans come in but you may not have the documents on the property lines, or the survey data, or the correct ownership,” Bogart said. “It’s the simple things that create problems.”
As long as the applicant makes an effort to have a complete application, staff will be trying to work with them and find the opportunity for approval, rather than rejection, Hernstadt said.
The town paid the county approximately $40,000 a year, plus the application fees paid by the applicant, to provide the building services. Bringing the services into Town Hall means the town will be collecting the fees, but making a revenue from those fees was not the point, Hernstadt said, as how much money the town got from permitting applications related fees would be reflective of how much work was being done in the town at any given time, a number that fluctuates with the building cycle and development environment.
“We don’t control how many people walk through the door, we can only make sure the welcome mat is out,” he said. “Revenue is purely from a standpoint that we have adequate resources to be timely. If we continually made money, we’d want to scale back our fees.”
Hernstadt said he knew some people would wait eight weeks to get a permits, and would then have to resubmit plans multiple times.
“That was problematic. Our goal is to be better than that, but how much better depends on how those plans come in,” he said.
For the time being, Hernstadt added another person on staff for building services and has contracted with a consultant to fill in any gaps. Any additional staff needs would have to be assessed later.
Building inspectors, which are needed for most permit processes, are hard to come by, Hernstadt said, but some of the current staff had some building inspector licenses already – a calculated choice he’d made.
Beach resident Gayle Crabtree-Pergoli and Milligan both expressed concern that there could be some kind of overlap from building inspectors and code enforcement – would building inspectors be on the lookout for code violations within someone’s home?
“People might be afraid to get permits because of the inspectors,” Milligan said.
Bogart said it’s against the code of ethics for inspectors to seek out problems in someone’s private residence.
“I don’t know inspectors who would go looking for something to find. Inspectors take a four-hour test in ethics,” Bogart said. “It’s not in the ethics code.”
But Hernstadt said an inspector might point out to a property owner something if it’s a health and safety issue, although not necessarily file a code violation against that person.
“We can’t walk into any situation anywhere and we saw something dangerous and didn’t call it to attention. If we don’t fulfill our responsibilities, we’re liable,” he said. “But there’s a difference between that and code enforcement. If you’re floor is uneven, fine. If we see something dangerous, we’re going to tell you you had a problem because if we didn’t, they’d blame us. They’d say, you were there you should have said something.”
Milligan said she’d gotten comments from the membership that felt that the town was trying to increase its revenue with punitive penalties from things like code violations. She said some felt these changes were “punitive rather than proactive.”
Hernstadt said since he’s taken over as Town Manager, he’s set up a compliance agreement system to precede opening a code violation case. So a code officer can cite an owner for a code violation, and perhaps that person comes to Town Hall and explains an extenuating circumstance, and agrees to fix the problem by a reasonable date certain. The town would agree, and if the problem is solved upon that date then the issue is dissolved. But if it’s not, then fines will be assessed for each day it’s continued to be in violation and the case can then go to special magistrate.
“Where cases go to special magistrate, they say you’re in violation and you fix it or be in violation,” he said. “The difference is, if you come to us, you pick the date. The magistrate isn’t going to ask you, he’s going to set the date. This is an alternative.”
Overall, Hernstadt hopes having the building services in house will end up, after probably a few growing pains, a better experience for all involved and provide the town more accountability for better levels in service. He recommended someone’s best course of action is to call the town and find out if the work they want to do requires a permit first, rather than get in trouble later with a violation.
“We’ll work with you and solve your problem. It doesn’t mean you’ll get a yes, but hopefully you’ll get an explanation and solutions,” he said.