Eye On Englewood

Link: http://EnglewoodStory.com

A couple of items stand up shouting at me from this most recent City Council meeting. The first is a letter from Lance Smith, who is the head of Englewood's building department.

It was distributed to Council that night, obviating its way around the library's reference packet for the public.

The letter said that Englewood obtained a low grade on risk assessment because it's building inspectors are performing too many inspections every day. ISO recommends two daily inspections because a thorough inspection takes a little longer.

Englewood performs as many as ten inspections a day. Mr. Smith reported to Council how their grade confused him seeing as they can perform so many inspections in a day. But, safety inspections are not a race.

Follow up:

But I was a little confused at the acronyms thrown around by Council, it is one of their gates between keeping a secret or wheeling it out into the light.

What is ISO? Since 1971, ISO has been a leading source of information about risk. ISO collects information on the building codes in effect in a particular community, as well as how the community enforces its building codes. They then analyze the data using their Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS®) and assign a grade from (1) to (10).

Grade (1) represents exemplary commitment to building-code enforcement; Grade (10) indicates no recognizable enforcement. Insurers can use the gradings to grant premium credits for buildings constructed under strictly enforced codes.

Englewood just earned a grade closer to (10).

An Englewood contractor informs me that he has had the inspector walk in, look around the ceiling installations with both feet planted in the entry way, shake his hand and sign off. Contractors prefer working in Englewood than Denver because they get to know the inspectors and the inspectors get to trust the contractor's level of work.

The waitress at one of Englewood's best family owned restaurants claims building inspector, Charles Petty, is a mid-morning regular, so I may have believed erroneously that not much building was happening in Englewood. That doesn't seem to be the issue.

In fact, a homeowner who pulled a roofing permit from the City this year claims that when he called for a roofing inspection, Mr. Petty drove up, got out of his truck, stood on the lawn and said, "nice color. Keep up the good work."

At first the homeowner heaved a sigh of relief. On second thought, he realized the inspector hadn't climbed up the ladder, walked around to the back of the house, or asked him a single question. What if his roof began leaking? Whose fault would that be?

I can see why people like building in Englewood unless this lackadaisical approach has a kick back.

Just such a kick-in-the-back occurred during the "Unscheduled Comments" portion of the Council Meeting on Monday, when a certain land owner from South West Englewood came to complain to Council that his neighbor had built a huge industrial steel building over the property line. Some of the building was built on his own land at 4400 S. Windemere Street. What is the City going to do about it?

Monday night, Mr. Shields complained that his neighbor's survey and blueprints, zoning and every other inspection passed Englewood's building department standard of care. But the City was wrong. Now, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to be sorted out.

Who do you think will pick up the tab for this lawsuit?

Check out item 7. Recognition of Unscheduled Public Comment.
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