SEELEY LAKE – Missoula County Building and Development Programs Manager Nicole Whyte attended the Seeley Lake Community Council meeting Feb. 10 to discuss changes to the County building permitting program including adopting new codes and a fee increase.
Whyte said that following the Building Forum put on by the Council last year, several County agencies that were involved in different areas of permitting got together to discuss how they could better streamline the permitting process for both contractors and homeowners.
Out of that meeting came the new website MissoulaCounty.build that walks people through the process including all the different permits required to complete a building project. This includes permits for well, septic, floodplain, address, building, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and more. Eighty percent of permits are now applied for online.
Recently, the County commissioners adopted the 2018 building codes as adopted by the state. By law the County had to adopt the same code as the state within 90 days of the state notifying them, which happened in December.
At their hearing Jan. 30, the commissioners voted to delay the new codes until as late as possible after receiving public comments that implementing new codes on projects that were already under construction should be avoided if possible.
Whyte said the County staff that is charged with enforcing the codes would be attending a code conference in the coming month to learn more about the changes themselves. Whyte hopes to be able to put out a summary of major changes to the code after attending the code conference. She expects that they will be learning about some of changes with the rest of the building community as the code is implemented.
At the January hearing, the commissioners also considered a proposal to increase the cost of permitting fees. The commissioners chose to leave the fee increase part of the hearing open until March 12 to allow for more public comment before making a decision.
Whyte explained that the inspection program is run entirely off the permitting fees and they get no money from property taxes or other general county funds. She said recent annexations by the City of Missoula has cut into some of their revenue as areas that are seeing lots of development are now paying permitting fees to the City. Another issue is that the inspection program has had some increased operating costs including hiring new positions.
The fees have not been raised since 2011 and the proposal is to raise fees approximately 15 to 20 percent.
To learn more about the fee increases visit Missoula County Public Works Building Division’s website and look under the “News” section: https://www.missoulacounty.us/government/public-works/public-works/building-division
Comments can be mailed to the Missoula County Commissioners, 199 W. Pine St. Missoula, MT 59802 or emailed to bcc@missoulacounty.us. Comments will be accepted until the March 12 hearing.
Reader Comments(0)