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Recent discussions have raised the possibility of bringing in more municipalities and counties to the Southeast Ohio Building Department.
Chris Wilson, chief building official, recently met with Washington County Commissioners to bring forward the possibility of adding Meigs and Athens counties to the department.
Wilson said he met with a Meigs county commissioner, as well as the mayors of Pomeroy, Middleport and Racine, and they all seemed receptive to the idea.
"Meigs County was with Washington County back in the 1990s," he told commissioners. "There was a bit of a challenge to service the area, as that was prior to electronic submissions. You've got a couple of municipalities that have possibilities of development."
It's a great direction to go, there's just not a lot of development, Commissioner David White said.
Neighboring county
Meigs County requested a building department office be added there, but Wilson said his explanation was "it would be nice to pick up the neighboring county."
"There is a development idea that we could go down the river and pick up two additional counties and bring that building review revenue into Washington County," Wilson said. "My mind is always how can we grow the department, still take care of the department, make sure we're solvent as to what we're doing, but if we look at Meigs, we may want to bring on another inspector because our geographical area has stretched to the point where structural inspectors actually need to be more prevalent than electrical inspectors."
He said if they also look at Athens County, they would need to hire two inspectors and he "wouldn't necessarily say no to an office in the Athens County direction."
If Athens County and municipalities are added, "you're looking at significant numbers" of applications, he said.
White said Athens County may be a hard sell.
"Meigs County, although it's a small number, is pretty easy," White said.
"Athens County has always been somewhat loathe to participate with Washington County in almost every area. Culturally and politically, they are antithetical to our people. It's largely because of the city of Athens, not the county."
The rural county of Athens is very similar to Washington County, but there's resistance with the university and the city of Athens, he added.
"I'm not against it, I think it's a wonderful idea, but I think it's a tough hill to climb. I think all along, they've been resistant to participating with Washington County in anything," White noted.
Commissioner Kevin Ritter asked if bringing on Meigs would make it easier to bring on Athens, and Wilson agreed.
Commission President Ron Feathers said Meigs would be impossible to do without Athens, unless it was entirely electronic.
"There's no way Washington County is going to subsidize Meigs County with a building inspector," Feathers said. "The numbers don't match, they don't work."
He said if Athens comes along, with two building inspectors brought on, especially with a year like 2020, "you're subsidizing those two guys".
"We offer this service not necessarily to make a profit, but Washington County citizens cannot continue to pay out of county general money to subsidize anything for the building department, whether it be Coshocton, Martins Ferry or St. Clairsville," he said. "It makes sense if both counties work together, but man, this 2020 (revenue) number, I know it's COVID, but it's the new normal."
Wilson said he's received verbal commitment from one municipality in Meigs County. He has a meeting scheduled with a second municipality today and the third municipality gave verbal agreement at their meeting held two weeks ago. He said he's seen nothing in writing yet, and the Meigs County commissioners are weighing their options through municipalities' input.
Coshocton
Along with Meigs County, Wilson has been in discussion with Coshocton the last six months.
"The challenge with Coshocton is the city is favorable, but they wish to have an office in that location so we could also assist with their local permits. They issue both commercial and residential permits."
He said his office doesn't issue permits, only plan approvals. They approve plans to construct or renovate, but zoning or flood plain permits must be issued for permission for the work to be done.
"The city of Coshocton issues separate building permits based on the cost of work," Wilson said. "They would like to have an office with an administrative person to not only intake our applications but also process their applications."
Plan approvals generate revenue for his department, and no tax dollars are involved, he noted.
Procedure
Wilson said if the municipalities or county agree to sign on with his department, there would need to be an ordinance or resolution signed to create a building department, if there wasn't already one.
They would then sign a contract with Washington County to provide services.
The contract would go before the Washington County Commission for approval before being sent to the State of Ohio for their approval.
Wilson said if a municipality chooses, they can take three readings and then pass the ordinance. Three readings aren't required if they pass it under an emergency session
He noted if not signed under emergency session, it could take 12 to 16 weeks for the process to finish.
City of Marietta
Marietta Mayor Josh Schlicher said he's had some casual conversations with contractors and homeowners about inspectors being spread a little thin.
"But as far as developing building permits or anything, we haven't had any complaints on that," he said.
The city's contract with the building department expires in March and the renewal is already being discussed, but not finalized.
"A lot depends on our code enforcement officer and what we do with him," Schlicher said, noting the engineering, development and code enforcement offices may be merged into a planning and development department.
"Wayne Reinhart is code enforcement, and he's the only one who has credentials to do permitting in-house," Schlicher said. "The problem is we don't have enough residential building to justify a department or another staff."
Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.