Building deptartment woes

Montgomery’s Interim building inspector reveals inadequacies

By Laura Fitzgerald
Posted 7/17/19

The Town of Montgomery’s interim building inspector painted a bleak picture of the building department at Thursday night’s town meeting when he described it as understaffed, underfunded …

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Building deptartment woes

Montgomery’s Interim building inspector reveals inadequacies

Posted

The Town of Montgomery’s interim building inspector painted a bleak picture of the building department at Thursday night’s town meeting when he described it as understaffed, underfunded and unable to keep up with growing commercial development in the town.


“You have big projects going on, and they’re going on unmonitored,” Interim Building Inspector James Farr said.


Farr said the town is failing to keep up with its commercial inspections. Building code requires “special inspections” be performed by third-party testing agencies retained by the project owner. The inspections include items such as concrete testing, steel inspections, fire code inspections and more. Farr said these inspections are currently not being performed on the 22 active commercial site plans under review.


“They need to be reviewed properly,” Farr said. “It protects everybody. It protects the owner; it protects the town to get these things down, and it’s going to get paid for by the applicant.”


The town has also failed to complete its basic stormwater inspections. The town is responsible for enforcing its own stormwater and erosion control regulations and should be inspecting all ongoing construction projects to ensure the owner is implementing proper stormwater controls in compliance with the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPP).


While Farr said the town engineerMike Aiello has been assisting the building inspector with filing the annual New York State Department of Environmental Conservation report, the SWPP inspections are only sporadically completed or not completed at all.


Farr also said commercial building plan reviews should be sent to an architect who specializes in building code review, especially for the largest million-square-foot-plus projects. The inspection should be paid for by the applicant.


Farr said the building official should periodically inspect the erosion and sediment control at project sites and make periodic inspections of construction sites to ensure work is being completed in conformance with the approved site plans.


“There was an issue yesterday with a gas line being put where it shouldn’t have been put because nobody’s watching,” Farr said. “Unless there is somebody out there on the town’s behalf, when you’re doing it after the fact, it becomes a little bit of a mess. We need to make sure things are built in accordance with the plan.”


The town should require applicants to post an escrow for an engineer to perform periodic inspections of site work, ensuring site inspections would not come out of taxpayers’ pockets.


At the heart of the building departments’ challenges is understaffing and underfunding. Farr said the town should add two or two-and-a-half employees to the one-man building department.


“The building department right now is definitely understaffed,” Farr said. “There is no way that one person can handle all the things that are going on in the building department.”


Farr concluded the town’s fee is about $124,000 to $139,000 lower than adjoining municipalities with similar projects. The building department may also have capped building permit fees in the past at a lower level than the calculated fee.


“Commercial is definitely undervalued right now for what we should be bringing in to properly staff the building department,” Farr said.


Farr said an increase in applicant fees would fund a larger department without using taxpayer money.
“What the state wants you to do is collect enough fees so the building department is self-sufficient,” Farr said.


The town has also failed to perform routine fire inspections. According to Building Inspector Walter Schmidt, only two inspections have been performed this year, both of which were requested for daycares.


Farr said there are approximately 192 commercial occupancies that have not had their fire inspections completed. State code requires inspections to be performed every one or three years, depending on the occupancy. Farr said this carries public safety concerns.


Building Inspector Walter Schmidt took a leave of absence for a medical procedure and Farr was hired to serve as the interim inspector until Schmidt returns. The town board passed a resolution to hire Farr in perpetuity to assist Schmidt upon his return.

Town of Montgomery, building department, inspections