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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-08-25 Minutes New Hanover County Inspections Department Advisory Council (IDAC) DRAFT OF MEETING MINUTES Regular Meeting of 2021 Wednesday, August 25th, 2021, at 3:00 pm New Hanover County Government Center, 230 Government Center Drive HR Training Rooms A & B THE NHC ADMINISTRATIVE FACE COVERING POLICY GOVERNED THIS MEETING Presiding: Chairperson Dave Smith Attendees: IDAC Members: David Smith, Shawn Sweeley, Garry Pape, and Pete Avery Regular Attendees: NHC Commissioner Rob Zapple and Cameron Moore (WCFHBA) NHC Staff: Nicholas Gadzekpo, Hans Schult, Edward McCaleb, Arthur Malpass, Jay Stokley, Randal Gray, Teresa McCormick, and Brianna Grella. CFPUA Representative: Jeff Theberge Meetings Guest: Heather Reeves I. INFO ON NHC ADMINISTRATIVE FACE COVERING POLICY Brianna Grella (Brianna) read the updated New Hanover County face-covering policy and the IDAC survey information. Nicholas Gadzekpo (Nicholas) informed the attendees that Mr. Honnecut (?) did not RSVP but might attend, his questions and comments would be listened to when he arrives. II. WELCOME-CHAIRPERSON David Smith welcomed the attendees. III. INTRODUCTIONS (FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC) Nicholas welcomed the attendees and Heather Reeves from Harrington Classic Homes; she introduced herself. The attendees and committee introduced themselves. The Board of Commissioners reappointed Pete Avery and Randal Siegel to the IDAC meeting. Shawn Sweeley is the newly appointed IDAC member. He said he appreciates the opportunity; he is happy to be there and be part of the committee. Nicholas called for a 15-minute break to allow for mingling and talking with each other. Page 1 of 12 IV. Public Comment/Forum Questions / Comments Brianna read the first customer question, Heather Reeves clarified it. Question 1: How long should we expect it to take to have a new const. permit submission set up? 1) Hans said we would like to see permits setup them within two days and, in general, two days max. a) The permit example discussed by Heather was a residential permit submitted online via Coast in July. i) As of the meeting date, Building Safety was a week behind in processing permits. ii) The application completeness check did not have anything to do with the delay. (1) Review Coordinator is now being used in place of the application completeness check. iii) A new submission or resubmission should take seven days or less, as clarified by Hans. (1) The delay is a combination of Energov issues, training, and how we do business. Question 2: How long should reviews and re-reviews take? And why are the buttons to resubmit not always there? 1) A demonstration was explained by Teresa McCormick (Teresa) and navigated by Brianna via Coast. a) In the new apps, the Review Coordinator will not allow uploads during the review. Instead, the files will be marked for a resubmit, and on Coast, you will have an option to resubmit for version two. As soon as we issue the permit, a switch is toggled to allow for uploads. i) When Heather resubmits, she uploads everything. The permit discussed was waiting in DSC's queue. ii) We want everyone to resubmit everything as one package per Teresa. iii) Edward McCaleb (Edward) clarified he would like to resubmit a complete building set and can submit the truss drawings together. He further clarified per Heather's questions. (1) You can submit construction plans altogether and label them accordingly. (a) Trusses can be submitted and labeled truss profile and the date you are submitting them with construction drawings. (2) All of the drawings you are going to be using to construct the building should be included. (3) All of the related drawings can be submitted as one file. iv) Nicholas will send a copy of the file names to Heather, and it is available on our Coast website. The Change Committee approved it. Question 3: How do I get a base house plan approval for a neighborhood to expedite reviews? 1) Heather clarified and has two subdivisions now, and when she submits the plans, the plan review is not consistent for base house plans on different lots. a) Edward informed Heather that we do not have a program for base plans. We require an application for each address and need to submit a plan for each submittal. i) Different reviewers pick up on different things. Each address is potentially different, and the location of each building is different. That is the reason why we need to look at each permit and each set of plans. Page 2 of 12 ii) Hans Schult (Hans) discussed that it was entertained in the past, and we have allowed contractors and builders to submit a plan they previously built. They still submit an application and site plan since the site may change, and it might be a left-hand or a right- hand change. If you submit the same house plan, there is no reason why you can not get it approved ahead of time, and we can do that. We will look at the setbacks and distance to the property line; it will still be the same amount of time. What will help is the inconsistency with the approvers. If we put it in a folder already approved, then there should be no issue with approvals. Contractors have done this, and they are stamped. iii) Hans and Edward will talk with the plan reviewers this week and get back to Heather. iv) Nicholas addressed the inconsistencies and explained that it is good to have a 360 review process with the plan reviewers. (1) Hans offered to get the plan reviewers in one room to look at the plans. 1) Teresa touched on the software system regarding the bugs. They are getting better, and we are getting an upgrade on September 17th to the 2021 version. We have seen a lot of the issues successfully corrected in the 2021 version. a) Heather clarified that she needs to call 50% of the time when the building is finaled to get to the certificate review. The certificate review has not been automatic. In July, she had several projects in plan review for over a month, and it was hard; some were not rejected. i) She figured out the CFPUA link and has been using that when a review is stuck. ii) Pete informed her that he had to call CFPUA on occasions. iii) Rob asked Heather to clarify what she meant when the projects were stuck with CFPUA. (1) She explained that CFPUA did not sign off during the timeframe. She emailed two different people at CFPUA and submitted a ticket to CFPUA from the link on the website, it was fixed within the hour, but she lost two weeks due to watching it and other projects. (2) Hans explained a fix for the issue already in place; if the building review is turned down during the next go around and CFPUA was approved, a plan reviewer would approve CFPUA. (a) Heather informed Hans that this had not taken place for her since their last meeting. iv) Heather pointed out that the drop-down menu options during a submittal have gone away. However, it was helpful for her when she was trying to attach a release. (1) Hans informed her that her input was helpful and its things we needed to do. (2) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked what the fix was for that. He recalled a conversation with CFPUA, which was discussed a year ago to make it happen. But, to hear that it is distressing, he asked if a specific person or committee within our department could deal with it once and for all. (a) Heather stated that it is the way it is set up for re-review. (i) Commissioner Rob Zapple knew exactly what she was talking about, and he had sat with the committee and other individuals and wanted not to have her come back for this specific issue. (ii) Heather explained that it creates more work for everybody because someone has to touch it twice even though she had submitted the release with her application. Page 3 of 12 (iii) Coomissioner Rob Zapple asked if somebody at the table could take responsibility to make sure the issue got fixed. 1. Hans explained there are several solutions. a. He will revisit the process with the plan reviewers, and if it does not involve CFPUA, they will take the initiative to sign it off. b. He said that CFPUA is to sign it off when it is assigned, and that is not happening. i. Jeff explained that Hans was right and that they have a responsibility to go in still and sign it off even if it is a re-review. So they will continue to work at that. ii. Hans explained that when Energov was set up, it was a global decision that CFPUA was in revisions, and they are not signing off on it. So we would help out to sign off. iii. Jeff stated that if it is internal of the house and not changing the footprint, they can be essentially signed off on any re-review. (iv) Chairperson Dave Smith thanked Heather and asked if there were any more questions or comments. V. REPORT ON THE OCTOBER 14 TH, 2020, MEETING (No Quorum) Nicholas reported on the October 14th, 2020 Meeting (No Quorum). VI. ANY INFORMATIONAL UPDATES TO SHARE? 1) Jeff Theberge (Jeff) announced there were several updates for CFPUA. a) Earlier this year, the authorities board approved a new staff member; they are not filling a vacancy, but there is a new member to the development services. It was an internal hire, and they filled it a couple of months ago. The responsibilities of that role are to focus on permit reviews and commercial plan reviews. So there was a little double duty since it was an internal hire until his previous position was filled; his replacement started this week. They expect when his replacement gets up to speed, he hopes that spot intends to expedite the speed of the permit reviews and hopefully stop going past the deadlines. b) They have been getting lots of questions on irrigation meters, and it is something they are working on to educate developers and homebuilders. It is a state requirement that they st, support, and on July 1 2007, anything that was platted before that date, the existing home can keep their private plumbing and their irrigation meter tied to the domestic water. Anything st, platted after July 1 2007 is required to have their own domestic irrigation meter; developers ask why. It is because they have different water and sewer rates. Often, they find that if your irrigation is tied to your domestic water, that homeowner will be billed sewer charges for their irrigation meter. Maybe sometimes the homeowner does not realize that. Once they realize down the road that they are being charged sewer for something tied into domestic, it is their responsibility to correct that and hire a licensed contractor and set a meter. They try to avoid it altogether, and they are working with developers in plan review. They make it a point to inspect that connection at the time of CO. Page 4 of 12 Sometimes, they do not know that it was connected if the plumbing was buried, but they try to make a point to see if a backflow was installed on the side of the house. If a backflow was installed, that was an indication that there is likely an irrigation system there, and they asked them to correct it. He is writing a letter with Arthur with that information, and the information is in the ordinance and will provide that support. It is brought up during subdivision developments, at the time of plan review, the requirements, and again at the building inspection. Typically it is on the developer installing the main lines if main lines are required when installing the service to split it and expect it to have domestic and irrigation. It is much more costly to come back and split it afterward since they need to hire a utility contractor to work on the public side since they will not allow just a plumber. That is something they are working on and continuously on, and some builders don't necessarily know, and some plumbers think it's ok; they try to work with them to get it corrected ahead of time. i) Cameron Moore asked that it makes its way to their plan because that is where the developers need to see it, and he can send it off to some of the civil guys and, in turn, get it off to some of the realtors as well. (1) He had a realtor call him about a subdivision in the northern part of the county with the same situation and sod. It would help the planning department ahead of time. Jeff said he would send it out hopefully later out this week. c) A FastTrack reminder, a CFPUA release is used anytime a permit involves any water and sewer services requiring fees; you come to CFPUA and pay your fees ahead of your permit submission. They will provide you with a receipt that you can provide with the intention that CFPUA will be signed off on as part of that permit queue. i) Heather stated it never is happening, and Hans stated that part works most of the time. ii) Jeff explained that it is still part of their responsibility to have their permit reviewers go in and ensure they are still working on that. But, unfortunately, most of the builders are not aware of that. d) They receive many permit calls requesting the status and when it can be signed off on, and they usually leave a voicemail. They do not check each other's voicemail, and if they are on vacation or gone for the week, they will not get the voicemail. In May, they set up a permit inquiry at CFPUA.org/nhccoastinquires, and everyone with access to Energov and Coast has access to it. i) Heather said she found it by chance from someone's vacation response, and it would be nice if someone would send it out. ii) Jeff said he would get a reminder out to everyone, and it is a great way to submit a question or status request update to that link. There are about five of them that get it, and anyone can look into it. So if it's ready to be signed off or if fees need to be paid, they can take care of it immediately. e) Cameron Moore would like to set up a meeting to meet the new director. He would like Nicholas, Hans, and Jeff to sit down since they are an important piece. f) Jim Flechtner, the former CFPUA director, retired, and Kenneth Waldroup from Raleigh as the assistant public utility director; he joined them in June 2021. He is very engaged and brings a lot of experience, and he is looking to be involved. 2) Teresa informed us that the past year had been a transition for us because internet explorer is no longer going to support Silverlight, and that is how we do our back-office work. So we have had to work off the current version, and we are moving to Energov 2021, which is app-driven and has been done in phases to help ease the transition. Page 5 of 12 a) The system was transitioned from residential to the new apps, the review coordinator; that is th why there was a difference in how you could upload attachments on June 28. b) The system was upgraded and transitioned to review coordinator for commercial on August th 16. c) Everything is in review coordinator, and staff is being trained to manage files and work the apps. Plan reviewers have a manage my review app; it is a different way of working, and it is integrated with Bluebeam. th d) The final upgrade for 2021 is going to happen the weekend of September 17. When that happens, we will no longer be using the old way of working. Instead, it will be app-driven on Chrome and hopefully fewer bugs, and many of the bugs seem to be corrected. Hopefully, it will make things smoother and allow us to get things done a little quicker. e) In April, we upgraded to 2020, and that is where some of the hiccups are. There have been issues with the servers being slow. Although we would sit there for an hour, sometimes waiting for a file to upload, Tyler has given more resources to the server, making it better. f) There will also be server work on the weekend of the upgrade, so we hope it will help things get better. But, again, we are doing that to lessen your downtime during the same weekend, so there will not be two weekends of Coast not being available. i) Heather said there were several days in July that Coast was down. Teresa said it did crash, and our Energov went down, and we had some pretty rough days. She updated that several staff will be engaged that weekend to test it, so hopefully, the bugs will be worked out by Monday morning. ii) Cameron offered if Teresa needed help getting anything out to the contractors, he would. They have the newsletter he can put it in. 3) The Chiefs took turns with updates. a) Edward informed the group that there were a number of amendments to all of the North Carolina codes. If anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to contact him. If there is trouble locating them, contact him, and he will be happy to point you to them. He does not want to go into specifics regarding each amendment since it may be of some interest to some people here and not some. Amendments are made throughout the year and are not publicized well or located in a particular place. i) Chairperson Dave Smith agreed with him, and he commented that some things are not there and are not always updated. For example, people can follow the building code council minutes, but they are not updated. ii) Edward informed us what is going on with the building counsel and how amendments are developed, and if they are not approved, we are not necessarily aware of them. iii) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked who Edward's go-to person is for a question and the process if he goes online or has a phone number. (1) Edward informed him it depends on the question and that there are different people responsible for different things. Typically he would ask via email so he could include as much information as possible. However, if it's a simple question, it's a phone call depending on the subject matter. For example, if it were for accessibility, he would give Tara a call. For residential construction, he would call Yip. (a) Chairperson Dave Smith said they keep their contacts page pretty up to date. (b) Edward said they are short-staffed. Page 6 of 12 b) Arthur Malpass (Arthur) followed up with what Jeff said, and he has been asked to educate the builders when they go out to inspections. His guys should tell the contractors and plumbers that they cannot tie to the domestic waterline in the discussed projects. Some now in the county have dual meters, and all of them will be after that date. So our inspectors are being proactive and trying to keep the lines from getting tied into the domestic lines. c) Jay Stokley (Jay) informed the group he had three things he wanted to discuss. i) He updated on the development of the checklists, an ongoing project this year. We have them on the coast website, and Brianna brought the building framing up for viewing. The checklist shows what items the inspector will be looking at for a framing inspection. On the righthand side of the document are the code references. So not only do they tell what they are looking at, but the code reference is right there for them to go lookup. He had a homeowner come in the other day, and it was great because it told him exactly what he had to do. ii) He informed everyone that two initiatives were going on. (1) They are trying to expand the use of live remotes for building inspections. One area to use the live remotes is for re-inspection issues that became part of the covid protocols. Jay challenged and is pushing his building inspectors to increase live remotes when items were turned down on an inspection. Instead of re-inspecting the next day, they can set up a live remote inspection. He did one the other day, and it worked great; he called the person the following day and set up a team meeting over the iPad with the remote camera and went around and showed him everything he needed to see. He was able to write off the inspection there. (2) The other initiative he said that Nicholas mentioned and is pushing is getting multi- certified inspectors in the field. A building inspector working in river lights has obtained his plumbing certificate, and they had a training inspection with some of Arthur's plumbing inspectors. We are now allowing an inspector to do multi-trade inspections; he can do a plumbing inspection and the framing inspection simultaneously. The goal is to get more certifications and eventually have one inspector complete all three trades and framing inspections in one trip. Between all of the chiefs, they are getting people together and trained. (a) Chiarperson Dave Smith asked if the builders are reasonably aware that they can ask for a live remote inspection. (i) Jay informed him that they had not gotten that far yet, and they are training on how to schedule in the back office right now. As they get more into it, they will bring in the building groups. Right now, it is just in a test phase. (ii) Cameron Moore informed Jay that the subject came up in a meeting the other day and let him know when he gets going. Brunswick County has a technology issue, particularly plumbing; it was brought up yesterday in many trades. Some of them still have flip phones and are not able to do live remote inspections. He wanted Jay to let him know how it goes out in the field and what he sees there. There may be an opportunity for them to partner with them to get that out. Contractors can understand how important the trades are and how they would expedite the job. Page 7 of 12 1. Hans mentioned that it might not be a technology issue just with the building community; it might also be an issue with the inspectors. 2. Arthur informed Cameron Moore that they originally started with changeouts, and it grew when contractors opted out when covid came so that they would not have to do masks on site. Some contractors don't want to do it anymore and leave the responsibility to the homeowner. They have had finals at river lights that one item was not corrected, and one of the inspectors took the initiative and told the contractor, if you get it fixed, to call him and video him or send him a picture, and he could final it. That has happened numerous times, so some of them know. In the live remotes, it has to be the same inspector that turned it down. 3. Cameron Moore mentioned to keep him informed, and it is running parallel with Brunswick county. d) Randal Gray (Randal) gave numbers as part of his update: i) From April 2020 to December 2020, when covid was probably at its heaviest with lockdowns, they did 6,595 remote inspections. ii) From January 2021 to the present, they have done over 4,000. iii) It gives a total of around 10,595. (1) Cameron Moore asked if it was residential, commercial, multi-family, everything, or what it was. (2) Randal replied it is 99% changeouts and its residential and commercial changeouts. They would like to do more. (a) Hans would also like building inspections too. e) Commissioner Rob Zapple had a quick follow-up with Jay regarding cross-training. He asked if inspectors get a pay bump if they are certified in another skill or can inspect, or are they just expected to be at the same pay rate, how does that work, and is it incentivized. i) Jay responded, yes, there is, and Hans can address it. He followed it up and said there is a way through HR that the more certifications they get, the more points they get, which translates into more pay. ii) Hans informed Commissioner Rob Zapple that just because an inspector has a secondary certificate, that will not allow him alone to do an inspection. We still need him to ride along and get trained from somebody else in that field. Once the Chief thinks they can do that, they will cut him loose, but there is a training period. iii) Nicholas said to Hans's point that Inspectors licensing is not like the NCDMVs where they do administer a written exam and an actual road-driving test, after which one obtains the certificate. He explained that the DOI certificate or the qualification boards is just a written exam. Some people know how to pass the written exam, but they cannot perform an actual list of inspections. He also said NHC takes people with the DOI written exam, where many paper certificates exist, and train them in the field to perform inspectons. Finally, he explained that new people have to get acclimated, and know-how inspections are done when new people come in. iv) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked if it was working, and he is assuming we are telling the inspectors that it is not just adding on more work but that more pay is involved. He asked if it is encouraged and if they like it or people are just saying why. Page 8 of 12 (1) Arthur answered that they have three that have all the certifications, and they utilize them as necessary. They have one that does building, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical when necessary, and he takes the initiative. If he goes on a job and the contractor is there, and there is something that is missing and not scheduled, he will go ahead and do that while he is there. f) Hans covered several topics: i) Hans commented on the checklist. Jay said that the residential checklist is a baseline that the inspectors can find, and some other items are not on the list. He hopes to accomplish consistency so the contractors know what the inspectors are looking at on the list when calling for a framing inspection. There may be more, but they know for sure what they will be looking at on the list. (1) Arthur commented that the only checklist that is being used is building, and Hans also stated residential. ii) Hans explained how inspections are organized. The inspectors report to the chiefs, and at the meeting are all of the chiefs; they represent all of the inspectors. Every Tuesday, they have a chief's meeting, and they talk about various things. They talk about Energov issues and quality checks. Each one of the chiefs does a quality check for their inspectors. They look at what inspection was performed and if the inspection was correct. For example, they have had guys sign off on a final when it should have been a foundation. They look at the workflow, ensuring it is correct in the computer, ensuring the inspector correctly signed off on the correct inspection, and scheduling it correctly. They look at the comments and see what the inspector wrote; supposing it goes to court in ten years, it must be clear. If someone reads the comment, does he interpret it the same way he does? All of the chiefs do this weekly, and they have a list of high-profile projects; one of them is the new government center building. That is on their radar, and they look at the workflow, make sure inspections are set up correctly; with the special inspections, they make sure all of the paperwork is there. We try to head off issues from the get-go, and diligently do it daily. iii) Hans addressed Heather and explained that they have had a challenging and continue to have a very challenging period of time in delivering service to the customers. The biggest challenge is the software. When the salespeople from Energov came two years they painted a beautiful picture, and we feel for it; it is not what we got. It continues to be not what we have. He provided a recap of over the last month and a half of what they face daily and while still trying to deliver service: th (1) July 6, review apps not working, inspection manager not working, coast down, review coordinator not working, submitted online was not working, certificate review not working. th (2) July 16, Review coordinator was very slow, cashiering was not working. th (3) July 19, inspection dashboard not updating, times of the inspections were changing, not able to upload in Coast, information not pulling up, coast down. th (4) July 20, coast down, inspection manager not working. st (5) July 21, inspection manager down, review coordinator not showing due date. th (6) August 6, review coordinator 2-hour delay. th (7) August 9, plan reviews assigned to Tyler support. th (8) August 10, plan reviews assigned to Tyler support. th (9) August 11, plan reviews assigned to Tyler support. Page 9 of 12 (10) On August 16th, reviewers cannot delete, extract, or insert pages in BB, only markup and stamp it. th (11) August 19, the inspection worksheet is not automatically attached to the inspection documents. th (12) August 25, 12:30 NHC public site down you could not get in Coast if you did not have a link to Coast, delay with BB for up to an hour for files to upload. (a) The phone rings off the hook, and we cannot get our work done. So when you hear we are behind that it takes a week to get your permit, it's not that we are not trying; it's because of the software. (b) The DSC staff have been working mandatory 12 hours a day, and they still cannot keep up because of the software not working. iv) Nicholas commented that there was one particular day that there were over 400 phone calls. The people on the phone would not hang up because that was the only lifeline they had. The staff had to manually update things for them on Coast and the customers waited on the phone until the transaction was finished. Sometimes it was 15 minutes; sometimes it was 20 miinutes. v) Hans gave an easy example regarding Bluebeam; the plan reviewers use a stamp on the drawings and open a pdf file to look at them. Whenever a review is set up initially, a notification is sent to the reviewer automatically. There is an unsubscribe button on normal emails, and the reviewers can get 10, 15, 20 notification emails per day, and nobody can figure out how to get rid of the notification. vi) Chirperson Dave Smith asked where the software representatives were for his initial thought. vii) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked if there was no support. (1) Hans answered that is above his paygrade. He was trying to inform when the contractors call when they cannot get their permit, their review is behind, or we have 250 phone calls per day why that is happening. viii) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked if the call was made to Tyler technologies or made to our IT department. (1) Hans replied with both. (2) Teresa explained we communicate with our IT, and they communicate with Tyler. ix) Commissioner Rob Zapple asked if they were not too responsive because it did not sound like they were since we were three days down and not running. He added that is too much. x) When Teresa discussed the slowdowns in the review coordinator, Bluebeam, or both, Hans explained it was happening again today. When she said it was an issue with the server, he stated that Tyler answered that we would switch servers in September with the upgrade. Hans questioned why we had to wait a month or two months. He said everybody thinks the upgrade will solve it, but why to put everybody through it. xi) Chirperson Dave Smith asked if any other counties were using the software. (1) Hans said, google it. xii) Chirperson Dave Smith asked the name of the software company. (1) Commissioner Rob Zapple answered Tyler technologies. xiii) Hans said to Heather when she calls DSC to understand what they are going through. (1) She said she does and completely does. She said she quit calling and would email a couple of people she knew would help her. Page 10 of 12 (a) She said in July; it seemed like the ability to do things was taken away from some of the people answering the phones due to the changes. However, she understands and does not think she got upset with anybody. xiv) Hans said some people do not understand, and the poor girls over there get cussed at and screamed at all day long every day. xv) It was in agreement that a side conversation would take place. xvi) Commissioner Rob Zapple said he is going to have a conversation with Leslie Chaney in the IT department. She is the head of the IT department and is retiring at the end of the month. So, he is going to try and get some clarity. He said he thought the contract with Tyler technologies would have some guarantees based on the previous software. But it is not since we are being told to wait until September to get a new server to solve it; it is supposed to be reactive and interactive to people trying to make a living. g) Nicholas explained that every morning at 9:30 am, he, Hans, Brianna, and Teresa meet every day with DSC to look at software problems and look at these issues. We, behind the scenes, are working on trying and fixing things. We do workarounds because of the customer. h) Chairperson Dave Smith said it sounds to him they (the software vendor) are not reacting positively, and it sounds bad. But yet, these are the companies that are supposed to have the solution for us. i) The software costs were discussed. j) Commissioner Rob Zapple thanked Hans. k) Nicholas said there some things that they need to know: i) There are three dates: ththth (1) September 29, October 20, and November 17, as possible IDAC meeting dates. The room is reserved, and they are willing to do it, and if they want to do it, they will do it. (a) Those dates will cover the things that are not covered in the current meeting. Some follow-up discussions can happen also. (b) We can do all three dates and are willing to, and we understand what happened with covid in 2020. It gave us a chance to rethink things. (c) We were not fully set up with TEAMS last year, still navigating some protocols. ii) He discussed 2020 as a challenging year and together with some parts of 2021. (1) However, it was a record-setting year; with almost 5 million dollars collected in permit fees. (2) Civil citation collections were $4,900; those are for code cases. (3) There were 30,527 permits issued in 2020. (a) There were 22,764 permits issued during the height of the pandemic from April to December 2020. (4) YTD, there have been 21,659 total permits issued compared to 20,871 issued last year at this time. (5) There was a 1.8% increase in February of this year. (6) There was a 21.6% increase in March of this year. (7) There was a 9% increase in April of this year. (8) There was a 2% increase in June of this year. (9) We had the same dips in July and August as Brunswick County. (10) For residential from January to August, the approximate numbers are 18,288 to date, compared to 17,592 last year. Page 11 of 12 iii) Every day at 3:00 pm, he, Hans, and the chiefs sit down to plan the next day to deploy staff. The work requires ten building inspectors, but there are only some on staff, and they have to keep juggling. (1) A building inspector position has not been filled since last year; a mechanical inspector was used to fill it during the recruiting process. (2) When you have 420 inspections, and you cannot have rollovers, you have to figure it out. iv) Nicholas asked if anyone noticed that we went out of the way to reduce permit fees. (1) The minimum permit fee went from $75 to $60 for residential trades. (2) Fees were reduced for commercial trades from $100 to $75. v) In the next few meetings, it would be wise to look at some protocols for meetings. (1) He would like to entertain and nominate a vice-chair if something happens where Dave cannot be here for some IDAC meetings. vi) Nicholas and Chairperson Dave Smith discussed setting up meeting dates and topics. (1) Expired permits are a topic that needs discussion. (2) Chairperson Dave Smith is receptive to another quarterly meeting. (a) Everyone else was receptive to another meeting. th (b) Chairperson Dave Smith set another meeting for September 29 at 3:00 pm. VII. NEW BUSINESS No new business VIII. OTHER BRIEF UPDATES 1) Nicholas said the list of Legislative updates from the state could be discussed at the next meeting. 2) Chairperson Dave Smith provided an update regarding the Building Code Council: a) They are working hard on the residential committee for the Ad Hoc for the next code. b) In December of 2022, all of the work needs to be done and completed for the 2024 code. i) The Ad Hoc committee's work needs to be finished and submitted to the Council. ii) There is a three-step process of B items, C items for public comment, and it gets voted on in June of 2023. iii) Then it has to get reviewed before September of 2023. iv) The effective date of the next code is January 1st, 2024. (1) Those on the Council should suggest a six-month overlap since it was not done the last time. 3) Commissioner Rob Zapple is now on the Building Code Council. 4) Pete Avery made a motion to adjourn. 5) Chairperson Dave Smith seconded the motion. 6) All were in favor. 7) The meeting adjourned. Written by: Brianna Grella, Administrative Specialist Building Safety Department Page 12 of 12