Does Common Sense Require a Permit?
Date Posted: July 2, 2014
Posted In: Ideas,
by Dave Spence
Common sense is a lost art in today’s world. A perfect example of this is the permitting regulations and process in St. Louis County and many municipalities around the region. I have been involved in many construction projects, been on a construction company board and have been exposed to a lot during my career in manufacturing and my brief but eye-opening foray into politics. I have witnessed some amazing feats of intellectual withdrawal from reality. A perfect example of this is the nonsensical approach to the permit process.
Most people who are taking out permits are trying to do the right thing and expand their business, improve their real estate and move forward. This translates into more jobs, more tax dollars and contributes to better roads, schools and funding of fire and police departments. Who would stand in the way of this? People who want to be right and make sure there is pain and suffering on the other side.
We are just completing about a $1.5 million project at Legacy Packaging in Earth City. We have installed additional clean rooms, added equipment and hired additional people. We upgraded a former Johnson Controls seating plant that supplied the now-empty Chrysler plant. We package pharmaceuticals, one of the growing industries. From the onset, we were met with a myriad of murky building codes, an indifferent attitude of timing for inspections, a “that is the way it has always been” type of response from everyone involved and, in general, a lack of customer focus.
There has to be a change in this thinking. We waited six weeks for a permit to put a 2-inch overlay on our parking lot. That is about as basic as you can get. We get involved in attitudes, fiefdoms, inspector shortages and judgment calls by inspectors that can change daily. I honestly believe the inspectors are frustrated as well by the inflexibility and complexity of ever-changing building codes.
Has anyone ever thought about the lack of growth in our region? We are not exactly lighting it up in new construction. There is a rare species missing around here and that is a construction crane. BJC, RGA and other projects are great, but there simply is not enough new construction to retain the trades at levels anywhere close to capacity. Most skilled labor is being shipped around the country to faster growing areas. Common sense says that we need a middle ground on more regulations that slow down construction and push the cost up.
There are probably simple, meet-in-the-middle type of ideas that would accomplish this goal. Here is a novel idea, why don’t we batch inspections? Why don’t we do virtual inspections? Why don’t we take the word of reputable contractors to proceed when there has been a spirit of cooperation?
Our front window has so many permit stickers on it that you can’t see out. Surely there is a common sense solution. Politicians, building inspectors, county council members, building code writers all need to wake up and find a solution to this epidemic that is suffocating people trying to do the right thing. Businesses thrive with less regulation and more autonomy. What are we waiting for to get going, start communicating and find a solution to this? We don’t need more politics we need progress.
Dave Spence is CEO of Legacy Packaging. He ran as a Republican candidate for governor against Democrat Jay Nixon in 2012.