City reforming building permit system

Ask an assortment of business professionals how easy it was to get permission to construct or renovate buildings in Columbia, and you’ll get an earful from many who recount frustrating trips through the labyrinth of city hall.

Building permit applicants call the system scattered and somewhat uncoordinated, and complain that the roadblocks and detours cause costly delays in construction. The most prevalent complaint is that different inspectors have different interpretations of building codes, particularly when the fire department is involved.

City Manager Bill Watkins wants to streamline the process of obtaining building permits and improve the coordination among departments and applicants, while still making sure that  buildings are safe.

So the Columbia Business Times last Monday asked representatives of the development community to sit down with Watkins and talk about his ideas for reform.

“I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about different interpretations by, say, the fire department and the water department, which literally holds projects up for weeks,” Watkins said. “That’s not an applicant’s issue; that’s our issue, and those are the kind of things we have got to get under control.”

The city manager told the group, which included builders, contractors, developers, an engineer, a bank president and a restaurant owner, that he and his staff are working to establish a “one-stop center for development permits.” By the end of October, they propose to:

• Establish the Protective Inspection Division of Public Works as the main drop off site for all construction plans.
• Form a development review committee made up of department representatives involved in the review process.
• Institute a fast-track permit process for small commercial projects.
• Begin a formal customer service feedback system.
• Hold quarterly meetings with the development/contractor community.

Eventually, Watkins wants to create a new city department devoted to development services. During the next 12 months, their goals are to:

• Assign a single plan reviewer to each project, one person who would see it through the process and serve as the contact for the developer.
• Create a new position, an ombudsman who would be the city manager’s representative, to coordinate city and developer actions.
• Train Protective Inspection reviewers so they can make sure new building space complies with fire codes. The fire department would only be involved in major projects.

The City Council later Monday approved funding for a second plan reviewer in the Protective Inspection Division and for the ombudsman, a job that starts next spring.

Forum participants applauded Watkins, and the last item on that list drew the most praise during a subsequent group discussion.

‘I’m real pleased to see the fire department getting out of the process,” Kevin Buckler, vice president of Coil Construction, said. “They beat to a totally different drum.”

David Keller, president of Bank of Missouri, labeled the changes “tremendous improvements,” while Jay Lindner, vice president of Forum Development Group, and City Council member Laura Nauser both called the reform movement “a great step forward.” Several others said the moves were long overdue.

Travis Tucker, owner of the new downtown restaurant Bleu, said the changes would “greatly ease the pain of opening a business.” Tucker said he wished the new procedures were in place when he started going through the process more than a year ago.

For Tucker, the most frustrating part was being approved by one inspector only to be told later that he was violating code.

Tucker had to remodel for his restaurant by joining two buildings together. That required a demolition permit, he said.

“We got a protective inspection permit for demolition,” he said. “But then, when we started, they said we couldn’t do it because we were crossing property lines.”

Tucker and the Protective Inspection Division eventually worked out the discrepancies, but the time it took to go back and get the permits in order was expensive, he said.

Another incident involved exit doors to the restaurant. Initially, Protective Inspection approved an exit door that opened by pushing a small panel. But later, when inspectors came to look at the site, they told him that design wouldn’t work and he needed an exit door that opened using a bar.

“The idea of one person being assigned to the project, I think that is imperative, so that you’re communicating with one person throughout the process,” Tucker said. “If you have everyone on the same page right at the beginning, I think that would greatly improve the process and eliminate a lot of the questions and the frustrations and the time and additional money that it costs to open a business.”

Tucker said the inefficiency and complications of the current process put smaller developers unfamiliar with the system at a disadvantage.

Watkins also hopes to create a “fast-track” process for smaller, more routine projects. The goal is to create a system where applicants can come in with a set of plans and leave with a permit the same day, he said.

Another problem voiced by those at the lunch was the inspection staff themselves.

“These are all tremendous improvements, but along with this procedure, there needs to be a slight tweaking of attitude adjustment within the department that should go along with the procedures,” John Jones, co-owner of Pate-Jones construction, said. “There needs to be some buy-in at the city level to the fact that we are just as much of a customer as we are an adversary.”

John Ott, who is renovating several downtown buildings, said some building codes are open to interpretation, particularly when applied to old structures, and he agreed that “a cultural shift will have to occur.”

To address that issue, Watkins said the city will begin to implement a formal customer feedback system. The city would use comments to improve the process and find out if businesses are having a problem with a particular inspector. In addition, quarterly meetings with the contractor/developer community will begin in October to expand communication and listen to their experiences.

Finally Watkins said another position, which he hopes to have in place by April, is an ombudsman who will report directly to the city manager. The ombudsman would be used to intervene if an applicant is having trouble complying with codes and would serve as a liaison between the city and the developer.

The changes will require coordinating the various departments involved in approving a building permit.

Here’s how it works now: applicants must personally submit separate construction documents, complete with general construction, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing plans, to various departments in charge of their review. As detailed on the city government Web site, the drop-off list includes the Protective Inspection and Engineering divisions of the Public Works Department, the Water and Light Department, and, for restaurants, the sewer utility and Health Department.

“We force contractors to drop plans off here there and everywhere,” Assistant City Manager Tony St. Romaine said before the forum. “From the customer’s stand-point, it just goes into a big black hole.”

St. Romaine said the city has seen a substantial increase in the number of permit applications in the last few years. But with the recent economic downturn, resulting in fewer construction applications, the city now has a chance to try and improve the process.

Beginning Oct. 1, permit applicants will drop off all construction documents at Protective Inspection, which will in turn distribute them to the other departments involved in the review process and deliver comments from the departments back to the applicant. That will cut the hassle of delivering documents to offices around the city and then waiting for each department to deliver comments separately.

As a remedy, the city is forming a development review committee where departments that are part of the reviewing process can sit down at the same table with the applicant and his or her consultants to work out any discrepancies in building plans on the spot. Another plan reviewer position has also been added to the Protective Inspection staff, allowing the division to give applicants a single point of contact throughout the process.

“That person will give us enough capability so that every project will be assigned personally,” Watkins said. “That person’s responsibility will be to help walk those permits through, and if need be, pull together a review group to work out a particular issue.”

At the lunch forum, Watkins outlined ways the city can make Columbia a more friendly and easy place to do business. He said the long-term solution may be the creation of a whole new department.

“We’ve got to look toward having a new development services department that crosses a lot of different lines so that one person has the managerial authority to make some decisions,” he said. “I know that may not happen in the next 12 months, but I think that’s where we want to go in the year after that.”

Power Lunch Participants

PRESENTER:

Bill Watkins, City Manager, City of Columbia

GUESTS:

• Kevin Buckler, Vice President, Coil Construction
• Carrie Gartner, Director, Special Business District
• David Keller, President, Bank of Missouri
• Perry Leutkemeyer, Owner, Millbrooke Enterprises
• Jay Lindner, Vice President,

Forum Development Group

• Laura Nauser, 5th Ward Representative,

Columbia City Council

• John Ott, Downtown real estate developer
• Annie Pope, Executive Director,

Home Builders Association

• Leigh Pate, Co-owner, Pate-Jones Construction
• Mark Timberlake, Owner, Timberlake Engineering
• Travis Tucker, Owner, Bleu restaurant

Participants received leather portfolio binders from Bank of Missouri and gift boxes from Stoney Creek Inn and ancillary materials from Kaleidescope Videoconferencing.