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Home permit filings pile up
By JUDY STARK, Times Homes Editor Two months after the new statewide building code went into effect, officials in some counties are still digging their way through the avalanche of permit applications that were filed at the last minute to beat the new rules. "We're still in the process of processing. We're six to eight weeks behind schedule," Hillsborough County building official Dave Ford said. Hillsborough received 3,800 applications in the final four days before the new code went into effect March 1. "Typically, we'd get a quarter of that," Ford said. In Pasco County, development director Cindy Jolly says her staff has been "working nights and Saturdays" to clear up the paperwork backlog. "It's just a lot of volume," she said. "They'll keep at it 'til it's gone." On one day near the end of February her department received 198 applications; typically, it gets 20 to 25 in a day. An exception is Pinellas County, where county building official Rob Nagin said, "We're done with the backlog. Everything that came in at the end of February should be out. By March 24 we were already processing applications that came in March 1 and thereafter." The turnaround time now should be 12 working days, he said. Builders jammed permit offices at the end of February to file dozens of applications under the old, familiar codes, which generally required less costly materials and building techniques than the new "uniform code." Officials said they try to work with builders who need specific permits immediately for homes for which they now have signed contracts. They'll go into the pile of applications, pluck out those the builder needs now, and move those to the top of the stack for review. In addition to the backlog from late February, some permits filed since then are being held up for lack of clarity about exactly what the new code requires, some builders say. Major portions of the code focus on requirements to make homes better able to withstand hurricanes. Builders can use impact-resistant glass, provide shutters or other window coverings, or engineer the house to handle internal wind pressures. Peter C. Krauser, president of Mark Maconi Homes and president of the Contractors & Builders Association of Pinellas, spent a frustrating Wednesday trying to mediate between the interpretations of a Pinellas plans examiner and those of his own engineer over how to design a house to deal with internal wind pressure. He expected to spend the afternoon on the phone seeking clarification from the window and garage-door manufacturers. Then he anticipated "another two or three days of phone calls and FedExes" before his problem was resolved. He is concerned, he said, that "this delay is just the tip of the iceberg." He said inspectors may interpret plans in different ways at on-site inspections during construction and halt work while they await clarification. The possibility of delay, he said, "is not yet slowing work on job sites, but it could potentially, and I'm very concerned about it. If we don't come to some understanding within the next 30 to 60 days, there's a higher degree of probability as we go along. "Nobody's being mean or malicious," he added. "It's just obvious that there are some things they have to work out." Nagin, the Pinellas building official agreed. "If the code was written in such a way that we could all read it the same way, it would be a uniform code," he said. "But we're not there yet." He is meeting with officials from other jurisdictions in Pinellas to seek consensus or at least to determine where consensus is lacking. Joseph Narkiewicz, executive officer of the Builders Association of Greater Tampa, said the crunch of applications is "frustrating for the plans examiner as well as the builder. There's additional information needed, it slows up the permit, but that has to be understood as part of the new process." "It's affecting everybody, from what I'm picking up," said Donna Schroeder, executive officer of the Contractors & Builders Association of Pinellas. Her counterparts around the state, she said, are hearing the same complaints from their builders about the slow pace of permit approval.
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From the Times Business report
From the AP
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