First steps taken for new county building department

During their July 31 meeting, Lorain County commissioners scheduled public hearings on starting a building department to handle the unincorporated communities.

The issue wasn’t on the agenda for the weekly meeting, but county Administrator James Cordes started the “probably process” during his report.

“Several years back, we had, what I would call, a collaborative voluntarily used building department,” Cordes said. “For various reasons, it didn’t really work very well.

“I will say part of the reason was us. The way we tried to do it, the way we tried to staff it, the way we tried to have a fee schedule that was ridiculous.”

Cordes said the county’s thinking at the time was that using part-time, retired staff for the former department didn’t work out, because many of the “retired” staff still had primary employment hindering their ability to inspect.

“It just wasn’t really cobbled together,” he said. “The effort was laudable, the outcome was terrible and the backlash was justified and it culminated in the collapse of that effort.

“That doesn’t mean that the need still isn’t there and, in fact, it’s there in a greater percentage now than it’s ever been.”

The unincorporated areas of the county are seeing, and will see, unprecedented growth so long as the economy doesn’t completely collapse again, Cordes said.

“We definitely are seeing it in the planning department,

we’re seeing it in the community development department; it’s unprecedented,” he said. “We’re talking about sewer projects in a lot of places.”

Cordes explained this has been planned for years and was meant to start earlier this year, but other projects and priorities got in the way.

“I don’t want it to die on the vine without trying to make a push on it,” he said. “We’ve set aside resources on this.”

The goal is to make sure buildings are safe for the

residents and to level the playing field between “good builders and bad builders,” Cordes said.

He said he’s aware that this decision is not going to be popular with some members of the community and narrowly avoided a possible opening for the conspiratorially-minded by pushing the public hearing back a week due to the Lorain County Fair, which runs from Aug. 19-25.

The first hearing will start at 5:30 p.m., Aug. 27, on the fourth floor of the

County Administration Building, 226 Middle Ave. in Elyria.

Commissioners also approved the hiring of CT Consultants Inc., which has offices across the state, to lead the way on developing the department.

In another late addition to the meeting, commissioners approved placing a 0.08-mill levy on the November ballot to fund the Lorain County Crime Lab.

The five-year levy is estimated to bring in an additional $594,090 a year, and

is estimated to cost the owner of a $100,000 home an additional $2.80 in property taxes a year, Commissioner Lori Kokoski said.

Cordes said the administration is the funds currently available are not enough to keep the lab running.

He said in the past, the county has attempted to put small levies out to support the lab, which initially were supported, but there was negative campaigning that cut down on the levies’ appeal to voters.

Commissioners also approved the hiring of CT Consultants Inc., which has offices across the state, to lead the way on developing the department.