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Show County home builders meet with inspectors On June 12 the Davis County Home Builders Association held an informal round table with the local building inspectors. The concept con-cept for the meeting was to bridge the gap between the two groups. The professional home builders want to maintain the quality of the homes being built in Davis County. "One way to help accomplish this goal is to have a uniform building code on a state-wide basis," states Margaret Crane, Executive Director Direc-tor of the Utah State Home Builders Buil-ders Association. The problem in Davis County is that every city has a different building build-ing code. When a builder builds in Bountiful, he has one set of requirements re-quirements and when he builds in Farmington, there are other requirements. re-quirements. Local builders in Davis County build primarily in a ten to twenty mile radius. If there were uniform building code for the state, it would enable builders to know what was expected ex-pected of them. This would help maintain quality control throughout through-out the state. Margaret says, "The NAHB (National Association of Home Builders), is encouraging the state to pass uniform building codes." Walter Clock, Farmington Building inspector said "There are several building codes for all the different trades. The most widely used code nationally is the ICBO. It is the mechanical code for housing." hous-ing." The problem is that each city can change or modify the code. This is controlled by a council or committee. commit-tee. Many times they will make changes or add something to the code. With a state code, it could be written to include all the needs of the cities. By making a state code, there could be representatives who could make amendments to the code every year during a state meeting on codes. Each city has a Class A member of the ICBO, and he or she could be the representative representa-tive for the city at the state level. John Hansen said that a Class A member of the ICBO can vote for changes on the ICBO uniform code nationally. In recent years, the focus of change has been on safety. However, local amendments to the ICBO have recently leaned towards to-wards the monetary hardship of the building industry. Randy Randall of Centerville says, "Zoning fees for the cities have been raised to keep building in control." Because of lack of federal fed-eral funds and water shortages,1 building in Centerville will be more difficult. Randy says, "Sewer connection con-nection fees are $370 and will go over $1,000 in the future." They1 will also clamp down on building in flood plains. Increases in fees have really hurt some Davis County builders because be-cause they set the cost of a job at a fixed bid. The cities have raised the price of their fees 600 percent in just a few months. Several builders have had their profit margin cut. The Davis County HBA is now auditing au-diting cities in the county to make sure these fees are being used for what they were intended. The meeting was very open and resolved several issues. Morris Squire of Bountiful said "To resolve re-solve the time lag of plan review, builders should learn the codes so tha p'ans De approved the first time through." Walter Clock also stated "We need to work towards a uniform state code and have each inspector certified by the state." This would help the builder who builds in Davis County because each city would treat him in a similar fashion. Walt also pointed out "Builders who use designers who don't know the codes run into problems." It is important for designers, builders and architects to know these codes. The answers to these problems are the first steps to working closer with city inspectors. inspec-tors. The professional builders in Davis County are determined to make Davis County an example for the state in maintaining high quality quali-ty housing. |