July 23, 2014
Confidence in the economy seems to be on the rise according to Marshall County building Inspector Chuck DeWitt.
During Monday’s County Commissioner meting DeWitt said he had 177 inspections in June compared to 141 in May. This is about a 26% increase. He said, “You can see that footings and foundations are higher than they have been. It’s been a busy month.”
Looking at a 3 year comparison, during the second quarter there were 89 permits issued with an estimated construction value of $1,536,417. Last year, for that same time period 141 permits were issued with an estimated value of $4,345,311. The second quarter of 2014 had a total of 176 permits issued with an estimated construction value of $16, 765,524. Part of this increase is Universal Bearing whose expansion project is estimated to be $8.9 million.
Looking at particular permits DeWitt said, “We had 63 accessory structures with electric this year during the second quarter and that same time period last year we issued 36 permits and only 18 the year before that. These buildings would include garages, barns and outbuildings. He said, “The number of projects has gone up significantly as well as the dollar amount.” This year’s estimate was $2,555,505 while last year’s was 953,695.
Conventional home with 2,000 or more square feet increased from 4 in 2012 and 2013 to 11 this year with an estimated value of 2.1 million. Homes less than 2,000 square feet also increased from 3 starts last year to 7 this year.
DeWitt updated the Commissioners on House Bill 1302 which passed and went into effect July 1st. Local department are going to have more responsibility on the plan review process, even the commercial ones. He was granted permission to attend a State Plan Review seminar on July 29th in Indianapolis.
The County Building Inspector also noted the State of Indiana will be adopting of new building codes in December. International Residential and International Building Codes which includes building codes, fire codes, mechanical codes, fuel and gas codes, electrical codes and plumbing codes. Because of this DeWitt will have to purchase all new code books which he plans on doing in next year’s budget.
The current building codes in place were created in 2003 and they have been working on them since 2005.