Rogue Builders meet County Governing Bodies enforcing Permit Requirements
As taken from “In ‘wild western Licking County,’ rogue builders meeting permit enforcers bent on upholding laws,” msn.com, as written by Alan Miller. The Angry Bear writer has added his own experiences to the article. There are modifications to the original article.
With the rapid pace of growth in western Licking County, some commercial builders and business owners have taken the law into their own hands by moving ahead with construction projects before they have all of the proper permits and inspections. Or as Linda Nicodemus calls it “the wild western Licking County.”
Those builders are learning Linda Nicodemus and a posse of other county officials are not standing for those who go rogue.
AB: I sat on a Planning Commission for a number of years and was appointed Vice Chairperson. For the most part, the builders I ran into in Livington County Michigan were pretty decent people and abided by the ordinances we had in place. Things were not passed in very short periods of time. Often times, it would take several meetings and typically spread out a month or so apart.
There was only one time I had an issue and surprisingly it was with the Chairperson himself. The evening we were supposed to hear a proposal by a builder he was not there for some reason. Another person was absent, and another person recused himself due to business dealings. As it turned out, the Chairperson was employed by the builder unbeknownst to myself and the Townhall Manager. We had a conflict-of-interest problem going on at the time. Even so, we did not have a quorum in which to conduct business so we sat through a presentation. In the end, the Chairperson was relieved of his responsibilities.
Most builders and developers will not game the process and will get the necessary approvals and permits. In this case, the builder just decided they did not need the permits from the Licking County Planning and Development Department, the county Planning Commission, local planning and zoning boards and local utilities and fire departments. All of which make sure excavation and construction work is done according to local and state regulations designed to protect people and the environment.
Licking County went to court and got a court ruling ordering LeVeck Commercial Construction and Development of Columbus to stop work on the warehouse project. Does this happen all the time? In another instance Licking County ordered warehouse construction site owners Jersey 1820 Ltd. and Jersey Warehouse to stop work.
The county stated the companies failed to obtain required government permits, failed to submit plans and an associated stormwater report for review and approval by the planning commission, failed to establish sediment and erosion control measures, and failed to establish stormwater, sediment and/or water quality basins.
Once out of control, it becomes difficult for a county of city to rein them in and it takes a lot of work to do so with limited staffing. Licking county had its hands full in January. Nearly half of the more than 50 projects county officials were monitoring had obtained all of the proper permits but were out of compliance with permit rules. This is another problem and sites must be inspected from time to time to maintain control. Linda Nicodemus found nearly a dozen others did not have the proper permits and were in violation ordinances.
AB: This is a common issue. I was a recipient of a hand delivered letter from the city due to my being 600 feet near a model home and its parking lot being built. I figured no big deal and walked over to the site just to see where the build would be. I thought I would see two empty lots.
Nope, slab was down, house framed-in and roof framing built. I called the city and asked them what the point of the letter since the house was already half built. I was told it was normal. I told him, it was not normal. And I told the engineer, what are you going to do if I go around to every person and got their agreement to reject it. Furthermore, you have two lots with two different uses. It requires two permits. He was not happy.
Another developer submitted a hand drawn plat of a Parcel within a development which was different from the one filed with the county (which was correct). I pointed this out to the city council and it still passed.
This is not just a problem with Licking County. In Arizona, they are taking shortcuts to get around the system. One suggestion was to eliminate the wait time from the time notification was made of a build to the time it started. In effect, there was no time given for public input. Even if people do not have input or do not show up, that time must be given
There is more to Alan’s article which I will not go into. Surprisingly he named some of the companies too as given to him by Linda Nicodemus. An interesting read.
I’ve said it here many times the single biggest problem we have in the housing problem is the lack of qualified people to build them. Applies equally to inspectors. Maybe I’m an odd-duck in that I was in the trades long enough to know that building codes protect me the builders as much as they do the consumer who wouldn’t want to buy a house that’s going to fall in on them. My complaint has always been there’s not enough of them to meet the demand
Have oft wondered, though, if it were not a bug but a feature …
I wasn’t done … yesterday I wondered a bit, made allusion to the seeming collapse in year-to-year withholdings were perhaps obstinance: a certain group of employers perhaps doing their part to sabotage the system by improperly withholding or submitting withholdings. In your face gone ‘Bundy’ … “just not gonna’ obey any rules what are you gonna’ do about it” bully that has become prevalent across the country
How much of this is trumpers just being trumpers ?
Ten Bears:
Where is the information on this?
The NDD post upstream
Ten Bears:
Excuse me, once again; I have to ask, not enough builders or building codes, etc.?
We bought a home that not only passed building inspection but the homebuyers inspection we paid for when we purchased it. 15 years after we bought we remodeled and the contractor found there was no support under a load bearing wall. The roof line looked a lot straighter after he jacked up the house and put piers under the beam.
Every time my husband has had to work on something in any of our three homes his most common comment is “How did this pass inspection?”.
Jane:
Our home is 2-3 years old now. I say three only because I saw records citing a third year. We lived in this home since November 2022. We found 25 different things wrong with it in the first month. It took one year before they were all fixed.
I documented them all with the builder. When he was balking, I sent an email to every person I could find an email addy for on their site (Meritage). Things started to get fixed in December. Things like the rods for the blinds on each window being of unequal lengths.
Our driveway was sloped downward to the street and also from left to right. They matched the left side to the sidewalk from the front door which was poured first. After enough complaining, they repoured the half of the driveway to match the other half and the portion of the sidewalk. It looked normal.
They planted the backyard. A few months later I was looking at it and it appeared out of balance to me. It turned out they planted seven plants instead of eight. Called them up and they said the eighth one probably died. In other words, it was my fault. Except there was no drip line for the plant. They came out and replanted.
Long term, I think we are ok. It is just the little stuff that the builder did not manage with the suppliers they hired cheaply. Cutting costs was the name of the game for each supplier of labor and product.
It was discouraging and a lot of work which is also purposeful. They figured you would give up. As I told my neighbors, document everything with emails and letters. Write down when you called, etc.
They have lemon laws for cars. Maybe one should exist for houses too.
Our county had so much trouble with the head of its planning department who was nearly impossible to fire that they made it an elected position. A friend of ours, an architect, won election twice, and totally rebuilt the department. Decisions were made more quickly, and there were more people with field knowledge (e.g. a hydrologist) and for enforcement. When an out of state developer wanted to build a “house” with 30 bathrooms and 1 bedroom, she recognized a scam and fought her even as other county officials cowered. It was an obvious work around to build a hotel or multi-unit condo in an area without enough water.
Kaleberg:
The Planning Commission reported to the Township Manager and the Board which approved our decisions on planned building. There were separate engineers who gave reports to the Planning Commission which was followed by the Planning Commission. My background included many of the functions to build a house. My dad taught me tuckpointing, bricklaying, etc. The high school I went to taught house framing, carpentry, drafting, math, etc. The rest of the commission was pulled from the citizens who had other qualifications.
There was only one time there were issues and that was with the Chair of the Planning Commission. He should have recused himself from those decisions with his company. He did not. I was happy we did not have a quorum that night. I would have voted against the development as the guy was a crook. He was trying to fool us. In the end it did not work.
Kaleberg:
Several other things come to mind here. A developer can ask for a straight development in which case he accepts all of the ordinances in place to build his community. Or he can ask for concessions, in which case there is going to be a give and take. In either case, the Planning Commission has all the plans beforehand. Review comes from other departments and other portions of state and county government for which the Planning Commission considers. That would include utilities, streets and roads, sewage or sceptic, easements, etc. I have yet to see which is a slam-dunk. The plans are open to an advertised in the newspaper open comment from the community also.
In no fashion could a developer put one over on the commission.