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Builders hammer home friendly points with city
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - October 07, 2010)
Builders hammer home friendly points with city
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
Chardon City Council and the city's planning commission opened discussions last week on what can be done to make the city more builder friendly without compromising quality.
The special joint meeting gave two builders an opportunity to provide their perspective on whether the city's requirements make the process more lengthy and costly for home builders and their clients.
The city heard primarily from David Payne, of Payne and Payne Builders, who also serves as president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Cleveland. Another builder, David Barr, of Barr Brothers Builders, also provided an example of possibly overzealous regulations.
"I can tell you, fair or not, Chardon has a poor reputation in my industry," Mr. Payne said. "It's known as a very unfriendly place to builders and developers."
Mayor Philip King said the city already has heard the same from some commercial and business developers that the city is an unfriendly place to do business. He said the purpose of the meeting was to look at various areas of the building codes to determine whether changes could be made to "improve the building" environment for home builders without compromising quality.
He said the meeting was to educate council and planning commission members on the home-builders' perspective, while reserving any actual changes for a later time.
Council agreed to meet at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 12 to continue the discussion. That discussion will look at why the city has the requirements it does, Mr. King said.
Commission chairman Kenneth Miller, who has served the city for 38 years, said that changes over time require a re-examination. He said if officials fail to respond, they hurt residents and fail in their jobs as public servants.
Mr. King said the meeting was prompted by several meetings with builders over the summer. He said those meetings were "extremely positive."
Mr. Payne said he is a resident of the area and wants Chardon to thrive, but is seeing builders less and less willing to build in the city.
"I've seen a number of people deciding to go elsewhere," he said. He attributed people's decisions to look elsewhere to build mainly on the cost of doing business in the city.
The city's impact fee, the charge to hook into the city's water and sewer, is one of those areas. Chardon charges about $8,600, while Concord Township in Lake County charges $2,400 to $4,000. With the current state of the economy being what it is, he said, builders and prospective home buyers are looking closely at their costs, making Chardon often, a loser in the competition.
Deposits required for various phases of construction, he said, can set a builder back, as well. He said he is required to put up $32,000 in deposits before construction begins. He said that money can be tied up for as long as six months. "It is an obstacle," he said.
Contractor registration, which requires builders to list all workers and their salaries, is unique to Chardon and has caused builders to shy away, he said.
An aesthetic requirement in concrete work, which calls for a swirling pattern in the finish, actually may compromise the durability. A 6-inch depth required for concrete driveways is also unique to the city, he said.
Mr. Payne also addressed the city's field change requirement which comes with a flat $615 fee. He cited a builder's attempt to lower a drain because it would work better, only to find he would have to pay the $615 fee because the plans were changed.
"I think the flaw in that is it's a one-size fits all approach for all types of construction.
Mr. Barr said he had built according to the plans for one home in Chardon. During construction, he said, homeowners decided to revise those plans to include a short sidewalk from the driveway to a door on the side of the garage. The change was noted during an inspection and he had to pay the $615 fee, he said.
The small change, he said, would have cost the homeowner $200 in materials and $200 in labor, but ended up costing $1,000 because of the city's fee.
John Sheehan, the city's planning and zoning administrator, said the fee was added to the fee list, because some builders were making changes outside approved plans. He gave an example of a builder who put the water and sewer lines in the same trench, rather than placing them 10 feet apart.
Another example was an omission of 1,200 feet of storm-sewer lines from the Meadowland projects. The fee is intended to cover administrative costs for handling those changes. But, he said, the cost may be "way, way over" the actual cost of handling smaller changes and "way, way under" the cost of some major changes.
Mr. Payne also asked that the city consider adopting a "red-lining" procedure which allows the city engineer to approve minor changes to plans. He said it is an "industry standard" which would allow them to save a week and a $100 fee for every change now.
He said every time the city adds another fee, builders find more reasons to shy away from the city. "It reduces the amount of people who will build here and that's an absolute fact," he said. "I'm building in the area and it's cost me business."
Mr. Payne said he wanted to work with the city to find a better way of doing things.
"I'd be happy to be a part of the solutions process," he said.
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