Marshall County Building Commissioner Chuck DeWitt gave the county council members an update on the recent report issued by the Insurance Service Office.
DeWitt explained that the report is done every five years and it grades the county on building code effectiveness for commercial and residential properties. This allows insurance companies to look at an estimated rate for property owners.
DeWitt said the building code effectiveness for commercial properties is excellent with a score of five as the county conducts a plan review with commercial building projects.
“We’ve done better than other counties our size and better than the state-wide numbers. We do well with that,” commented DeWitt.
When discussing the residential side of the report, the county’s grade of 99 needs to improve.
“It’s as close to terrible as you can get. That represents not having a local plan review. We don’t review residential building permits. They’ll bring in a sketch of where the house is going. If it’s new construction, they’ll bring in a sketch of where the addition is going. If it’s a remodel, we don’t ask for details and we don’t review those for window and door placement. We don’t look at structural components or anything like that ahead of time.”
Inspections are done as construction is in progress to ensure things are up to code.
DeWitt said they will take measures to make sure a pre-construction review process is conducted prior to the issuance of a new construction or remodeling residential permit. However, DeWitt said it will be difficult with the workload per employee in the department.
