NORWICH – The sheer number of building and fire inspections that are required to be performed by the City of Norwich Codes Department may lead to a change in the way the program is structured.
According to Police Chief Joseph Angelino, the codes department has had a difficult time keeping up with the required volume of inspections ever since the city adopted state mandates. The New York State Municipal Building Code regulates the frequency of inspections for buildings according to size and use.
At recent meetings of both the Public Safety and Public Works Committee and the Personnel and Finance Committee, Angelino explained that currently the city contains 247 commercial structures and 187 other buildings that are not private dwellings, in addition to other buildings used for public assembly. Depending on the classification, the buildings have to be inspected every one to three years.
“Currently, we have fire captains who are assisting with the fire inspections, but we need to be looking at our options,” Angelino told the committee. Because of the number of inspections, the police chief said the inspections could potentially take up all of the Code Enforcement Officer’s time, and a full-time, dedicated inspector may be needed.
In order to find funding for the position, Angelino said the city may want to consider charging for the mandatory inspections.
“One option would be to charge for the inspections,” he said. “Right now, we’re the only municipality in Chenango County that doesn’t charge.”
Chenango and Otsego County both charge by the hour. In Chenango, the cost is approximately $40 an hour. Angelino explained another option would be to charge by the square footage of the building instead of using an hourly rate. Cortland County charges on a sliding scale depending on the size of the structure.
Neither committee made a decision on the issue, but Angelino said he would put together a report on the different fees and bring the information to the Common Council in the near future.