After the retirement of the township’s building official in 2007, the township chose to contract services for plan review, permitting, and inspections for building as well as for the sub-trades, mechanical, electrical and plumbing. It should be noted that prior to the retirement, our sub-trades were permitted and inspected by the Michigan Bureau of Construction Codes. In addition to outsourcing the Township’s permitting/inspection process, hire a part-time ordinance enforcement officer was hired.
Our ordinance enforcement officer is tenacious with a higher ordinance compliance rate than our retired building inspector who split his duties between building inspections and ordinance enforcement.
While it is difficult to measure a monetary savings because fees paid for services is dependent upon the amount of construction/permit fees received. The level of service to our residents and contractors working for our property owners, however, has increased with inspections for the sub-trades being timelier, number of inspectors servicing our agency and accessibility to all inspectors.