Opponent Testimony on HB 372 — Summit County Building Standards, House Commerce and Labor Committee (2022)

Summary

This is opponent testimony on HB 372 to the House Commerce and Labor Committee, dated March 29, 2022, from Christopher Randles, Chief Building Official, Summit County Building Standards. The testimony says Summit County does not oppose the intent of the legislation but that the remedies as drafted will likely not achieve their intended purpose. It states that Summit County in many instances can schedule a hearing within 14 calendar days but has not historically been able to do so within the time period in the proposed legislation. It says an amendment allowing more time is necessary and that, without it, the county would likely be forced to decertify its local appeals board and send everything to Columbus.

Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used

Full text

                                        House Commerce and Labor Committee
                                                    March 29, 2022
                                             Opponent Testimony – HB 372
                                       Christopher Randles, Chief Building Official
                                           Summit County Building Standards

Chair Stein, Vice Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Lepore-Hagan and members of the House Commerce and Labor
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony in opposition to House Bill 372.
I represent Summit County Executive, Ilene Shapiro and am the Chief Building Official for the Summit County
Department of Building Standards. My office performs building code enforcement for 22 separate political jurisdictions
within Summit County including the Cities of Akron and Cuyahoga Falls. While we don’t oppose the intent of the
proposed legislation, the remedies, as currently drafted, will likely not achieve their intended purpose and may have the
opposite effect.

Our understanding of the issue which is being addressed by HB 372 is that inspectors in the field do not always grant
approval for construction to proceed at certain points of construction. Please understand that an inspector has no
authority to grant approvals and stop construction in the field. An inspector’s only authority granted by the Ohio
building codes is to audit construction at certain intervals and report findings back to the owner’s representative and the
appropriate Building Official. If a Building Official finds that corrections must be made, they must issue an adjudication
order, which can then be appealed to the local Appeals Board. In the instances recited in proponent testimony, it is
apparent that these procedures are not being followed. In these instances, the Ohio Board of Building Standards should
have stepped in to correct the improper enforcement of the codes. The remedies for the problems cited, already exist.
While expediting appeals procedures may be beneficial, there are practical limits to the degree to which they can be
sped up. In practice, Summit County tries to schedule a hearing as soon as we receive an appeal request. In many
instances we can do this within 14 calendar days, but we have not historically been able to schedule a hearing in the
time period specified in the proposed legislation. The members of the Summit County Appeals Board are volunteer
professionals with full time jobs, in most cases. To schedule a hearing, we must follow public meetings laws and must
ensure we can convene a quorum of the members to proceed. The legislation, as proposed, simply does not give us
enough time to do this. The only tool provided by the legislation that truly helps to expedite our process is the ability to
hold the meeting virtually, the additional fee does nothing to help expedite an appeal as our Board members are not
paid.

In order for HB 372 to be effective, an amendment to allow more time to schedule and hold hearings is necessary.
Without additional time, it is unlikely we can schedule and hold a hearing in the time frame specified. We would likely
be forced to decertify our local appeals board and send everything to Columbus to manage. This would actually lengthen
the time necessary to resolve disputes, particularly as the State begins to hear more and more of these cases from
across the state.

In conclusion, HB 372, as proposed, will not be likely to provide the improvements to the appeals process contemplated
by its sponsors. Solutions to the types of incidents which led to its drafting, already exist in State law. The idea of
creating a more expedited timeline for local appeals boards to provide hearings does have merit. That timeline needs to
work within the realities necessary to maintain a professional appeals board which operates as a public body.

Christopher Randles
Chief Building Official
Summit County Building Standards
Ilene Shapiro, Summit County Executive
1030 E. Tallmadge Ave
Akron, Ohio 44310
330-630-7280


File and source

File

2022-03-29_commerce-labor_testimony_hb372opsummitwritten.pdf

Size

426,799 bytes

SHA-256

eb2223382f6bbff768b68278c3083ed062b1a13cf3300d28d18fdd17a31b66de

Our copy

2022-03-29_commerce-labor_testimony_hb372opsummitwritten.pdf

Original

No public link identified.